Kingdom Hearts: Other Worlds
by The Threat
Summary: Just as the title states it, this here will be a series of one-shots, in which the Heartless invade other worlds as well.
1. Galactica

Disclaimer: "Kingdom Hearts" and related characters are owned by Disney and Square Enix. Characters and situations used in this chapter are created by Glen A. Larson and Joss Whedon.

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**Galactica**

Out in the darkness, the black as commonly referred to, comes a vessel. Not particularly big, barely even able to stay in one piece, yet it is a place that the people inside love and call home. Little did they know, however, that they were about to bump in on something as large as the vessel they saw that day. Or night, it was never easy to say, as the captain of the little vessel would put it.

"A mite big ship, even for Alliance." that captain, referred to as Mal, said.

"I ain't never seen any Alliance-ships that looked like that." one of his deck-hands, Jayne, remarked.

"It can't be Alliance." the second in command, Zoe stated, "This ain't their one of their usual routes. Plus they would have hailed us the moment they see us."

"It's weird..." the little girl riding shotgun (though doing more piloting than the captain claims to be doing), River, whispered, "The sensors sense no life inside, but... all I see is... darkness..."

Mal sighed: "You don't my asking what that means?"

"Nothin'!" Jayne answered before River could say anything, "That girl spouting nonsense as usual."

"But she's right, there ain't nobody alive inside." Mal added, "Although it seems to have breathable atmo."

"Think it's worth checkin' out, Capt'n?" Zoe asked her superior.

"Dunno." Mal appeared more undecided than usual, which means a lot, "It don't look like anything the Alliance would toss aside like this, or anythin' the Independents would make."

"Because it's not with either." a voice coming from the entrance to the cockpit spoke.

Everyone turned to look at who spoke. It was the one person who was newly hired on this ship. Someone quite young, second youngest to River, whom although annoying to everyone aboard, appeared to be of some use to everyone.

"Well then, Reese!" Mal sounded sarcastic, "What do you think it is? Alien?"

The young man, Reese, stepped closer. After examining the ship for a few seconds longer, he decided to speak: "If you define 'alien' as in non-humans from other worlds, I don't think so. But..."

"What else could I mean?" Mal interrupted.

Jayne, who wasn't always the smartest aboard, did wonder: "Are you sure?"

Reese looked at something on the ship. It had it's name written on it, with such big letters one could see it from ten miles away. It read 'Galactica', in a known alphabet, which ruled out that possibility.

"Yep. I'm pretty sure it is." Reese replied.

"And if I mean 'alien' by... by what?" Mal was still confused.

"By humans from other worlds?" Reese completed for him, "I think so."

"Alrighty..." Jayne was about to get tensed up, "How in (mumbled Chinese) is that possible?"

Reese sighed, but spoke eitherway: "Our history states we came from a different world and colonized these hundreds of worlds."

"If I want a history lesson I'd ask a historian!" Mal interrupted.

Reese grinned, but didn't stop his explanation: "Given the dangers of the universe, known and unknown, not all of the ships that were send reached this system. Some got destroyed, others got lost. Those others may have settled down on some planets of their own. I think this ship may have belonged to those. Historians would kill just to get their hands on something like this."

"But that's just an sumption." Zoe wondered.

"If you mean..."

"We know what she means, Reese!" Mal interrupted him.

Reese got spooked, but stayed calm: "Yes, it's just an assumption. Still... a ship this big, it must be carrying a lot of people, either to live their, or to work there. In either case, it had to feed a lot of people."

"You think there may be food in there?" Jayne asked.

"And what if people fled the ship because there was no food?" Zoe was still skeptical.

"It'd be suicide if they did." Mal answered, "But you're right, Reese. There may be some things we can use there."

"I sure am glad that we ain't risking no more to run into Reavers." Jayne remarked.

"We still can't be too careful." Mal reminded him, "River. Land us on top of this ship! Zoe, Jayne. Get the suits ready."

Mal walked towards the intercom and spoke to it: "Kaylee?"

All he recieved for a reply was some heavy breathing, but he didn't give up: "Kaylee?!"

After a few more, though lessening breaths, the girl he wanted to reach replied: "Yes Capt'n?"

"Get ready! Got you and the doc a job to do." Mal said.

The doctor, who was with Kaylee at the time, spoke too: "... Me?"

"I need you to stay away from my mechanic as long as we're on the job!" Mal ordered him, after which he made to leave the cockpit, as did Jayne and Zoe.

Reese stayed behind, having kept his eyes off the Galactica the whole time. River noticed this, so she asked: "Something wrong?"

Reese did not say anything, though River could hear him think: "It's called Galactica, but right now I feel Mary Celeste would suit it better."

"Who's Mary Celeste?" River asked him.

Reese turned to look at her, having nearly forgotten she can hear people's thoughts. Once he remembered, he said out loud: "A ghost ship."

Their ship, called Serenity, landed on top of the Galactica. Kaylee had opened a hatch, which was in the cargo-bay's floor, which also lead them outside the ship, and used all the equipment she knew to bore a hole through the Galactica, so they could enter. It took them a while, long enough to get everybody aboard to this very spot, but they managed to get through anyway.

"Whatever it is that got everyone, our scanners ain't picking it up in the air." Zoe said.

"So it's not in the air." Mal sounded relieved.

"It's not the air we should worry about." River whispered.

"Then what?" Mal asked her.

River didn't say anything, but looked at Reese instead, which got Mal to look at him too. Reese had a questionable look on his face, but after looking at River, he realized what it was that went through the captain's mind, before he even asked it out loud.

"You know something we don't?"

Reese sighed, but spoke eitherway: "Long ago, at the ancient seas, there was another ship. One just like this one, where the captain, his wife and kids, his crew... all vanished without a trace.On top of that, that ship made it to shore, without any crew controlling it. Some say it was controlled by ghosts."

Mal chuckled: "Well, need I remind you, that we ain't..."

"If this ship is what I think it is..." Reese interrupted, "... I must say it sure came a long way to make it here, all by itself."

This did startle Mal for a second, but he shrugged it off: "Even the Reavers weren't just people who stared out into the black for too long. I'm pretty sure there's a logical explanation for this."

"I hope so." Reese sighed.

Mal, however, turned to the doctor, Simon: "There is a logical explanation, right?"

"You're asking me?" Simon asked.

"Mal!" the best-dressed lady aboard, Inara, sounded worried, "I'm not sure how much truth there is to what he said, but..."

"I'm sure there's nothing to be worried about." Mal assured her.

Once they got inside the Galactica, they walked through the corridor they had ended up, until they got somewhere, where the corridor started to split up.

Mal did all the talking again: "Okay! Let's spread out, so we can cover more grounds! If..."

"Er... Malcolm?" Reese started.

Mal was getting tired of hearing Reese's voice, especially since he's the only one who calls him by his proper first name: "What?!"

"This is quite a huge ship. Too easy for us to get lost in." he said.

"I can't help but agree with him." Zoe said, "It would take us too long if we need to find each other again."

"Fine then, we stick together." Mal decided, "Nobody just walks astray, or even..."

"MAAAAALLLL!!!!" Jayne shouted.

Mal turned to look at Jayne: "No need to shout. I'm right next to y..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he saw what it was that scared Jayne. He wasn't sure of what he saw though. At first it appeared to be a shadow, which moved without anyone or anything casting it down. Suddenly, it emerged from the floor, to become a bug-like creature, with tingling antenna's, which was likely even what caused the weird sound they all kept hearing. Mal's, as well as everyone else's, first reaction was to mumble something in Chinese.

"Darkness." River whispered, "That's all they are. Darkness."

Mal hesitated no longer. He raised his gun to this little creature and fired a shot. At first it seemed to split up and splatter all around, but then the splatters disappeared, and something shiny and shaped like a heart left it, only to vanish as well.

"It won't see anything but darkness now." Mal laughed.

"Captain!" Zoe called, as on the other end of their line a few more appeared.

Mal was about ready to go mad: "Oh... it's never easy, is it!"

One way or another, the whole crew managed to get themselves back to their own ship. And though they got inside, the little dark creatures were still after them.

"Everyone, stay here and keep them off my ship! Kaylee! I need you with the engine!" Mal commanded, "Everyone else! Close the hatch as soon as I give the order!"

Mal ran to the cockpit as fast as he could. The moment he arrived, he pressed all the right buttons, as he got the engine running.

"Is she ready?!" Mal asked Kaylee over the intercom.

"She's all yours, Capt'n!" she replied.

Then referring to the others, Mal ordered through the intercom: "Close the hatch now!"

A few seconds later, Zoe said: "Hatch is closed!"

Serenity flew off the ship, leaving the hole in the Galactica, which was covered at first, open. This caused some kind of vacuum that sucked all the air inside the ship to leave, taking all the little black creatures to go with it. Along with that, the ship had lost all grip, and got pulled by the gravity of the nearest planet.

One of the creatures somehow still managed to get inside Serenity, but it only took the strength of River's foot to make this one disappear. As soon as she did that, Mal entered the cargo-bay, along with Kaylee.

"Now... can somebody (mumbles Chinese) tell me what these gorram things were?"

"Looked a lot like space bugs to me." Jayne replied.

"Now I know what you meant by telling me 'don't let the space bugs bite'." Simon told Kaylee.

"Well, whatever those things were..." Reese started, "... hopefully that vacuum you caused was enough to take them out."

"Hope?" Mal sounded furious, "You better hope that I won't have to kill you next time YOU see something interesting!"

He turned away angrily. Though Reese seemed a lot calmer than he was supposed to, after being threatened by the captain.

"Don't worry." Simon assured Reese, "Once you get used to it, it won't seem half as bad."

"Joke's on him anyway." Reese replied, "He didn't particularly get scared from my ghost story, or Inara's warnings."

"Yeah." Inara agreed, "He can be a stubborn (mumbles Chinese)."

Whatever it was that Inara said in Chinese, it appeared to be a shocking choice of words, given Reese's look on his face.

"I'll never get used to you people." he sighed.

**THE END**

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Disclaimer: the character "Reese" is mine.


	2. Stargate Command

Disclaimer: characters used in this chapter are owned by MGM Television.

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**Stargate Command**

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" sounded through the entire underground facility.

The entire facility got in an uproar. Military people ran as fast as they could towards the so-called Gate-room, as if the devil was chasing them. Or rather, as they'd put it, they expect to see the devil at the door.

In the control room, a technician was looking on his screen, as his superior, referred to as General Hammond, waited for him to give a possible explanation for this.

"Receiving an IDC-code, sir." the technician said, "It's SG-1, sir!"

"Open the iris!" Hammond ordered, to which the technician obeyed.

The Gate's iris opened, revealing the puddle it's supposed to shield. From out of the puddle came one small man with glasses, named Daniel Jackson PhD, one woman, named Major Sam Carter, a tall black man with a golden emblem on his forehead, named Teal'c, and an older man who's the leader of this group, Colonel Jack O'Neill.

"Close the iris!" O'Neill shouted, once everybody got in the room.

The technician did as he was told, again, and closed the iris. Next thing everyone knew, a bunch of thuds came from things bumping against the now closed iris. Other than the four who just came through, nobody knew what it was that bumped in, but thanks to the iris, they will never be any trouble to this command.

Hammond came down to the Gate-room: "What happened?"

"It's an ever-lasting tale to tell." Teal'c replied.

"A long story!" O'Neill simplified him.

"I thought there was only a crashed ship there!?" Hammond couldn't understand.

"Yeah?!" O'Neill exclaimed, using his usual cynical tone, "Well clearly, something survived!"

"Sir." Carter cut in, "There was something on that planet which... well I can't describe it."

"They looked like replicators." Jackson said.

"But they are not!?" O'Neill wondered.

"Well..." clearly Jackson had no answer.

"Their behavior has many similarities with that of a replicator." Teal'c thought out loud.

"But I'm more worried about what makes them different from them." Carter remarked.

"I expect a full explanation next time I see you!" Hammond commanded, "Briefing in one hour!"

As said, one hour later, the whole team, known as SG-1, arrived at the conference room. With General Hammond sitting at the head of the table, all of the team's members were about to tell him everything that had happened on their recon mission.

"Can you finally explain what it was that happened on that planet?"

"Well, sir..." Carter started, "All that the MALP showed us was the wreckage of a ship, which by the looks of the damage must have recently crashed."

"It is possible that there had been a battle which destroyed the ship." Teal'c added.

"Maybe." Jackson reasoned, "But the ship showed no signs of any recent struggle on the outside, so it must have been a malfunction..."

"On the outside?" Hammond appeared to have missed something.

"Inside, was an entirely different story!" O'Neill replied.

"There appeared to be many people inside the ship, died when struggling against an enemy." Teal'c added.

"We had no idea what caused it all, until we saw some... things, creeping out of the shadows." Jackson explained, "Literally speaking."

"They seem like creatures, made entirely out of shadows." Teal'c said.

Carter felt an explanation was needed: "Which is scientifically impossible, coz that would have to..."

"CARTER!" O'Neill could sense it when she was about to use techno-babble which he couldn't understand.

"Point is..." Carter continued, "... these creatures... or shadows or whatever they are, like replicators, they appear to keep making more of themselves."

"How can you be so sure?" Hammond asked.

"Because with every... thing we shot, ten more seem to come out o' nowhere!" O'Neill had been dying to say that.

"Are you saying that by shooting them, you're actually helping them to... multiply?" Hammond still needed to hear this from them.

"That would be Jack's theory." Jackson replied.

"Hey! Can't I have a theory for once?" O'Neill was being his sarcastic self again.

Again, a voice exclaimed through the speakers: "Unscheduled off-world activation!"

Out of reflex, the whole team got out of their seats, while O'Neill found it necessary to say: "D'oh."

Everyone was in the control room, while the technician was still awaiting something: "Still no IDC, sir!"

Carter, meanwhile seemed to notice something else on the screens: "That's weird. If these readings are correct than..."

She didn't get a chance to finish her sentence, for Jackson screamed: "Wooooh!"

"Daniel?" O'Neill was suspicious, "What's wrong?"

"I... I saw something... there and I think... I think it was one of those shadows." he answered.

"Are you sure?" O'Neill asked.

Suddenly, one such shadows jumped on one of the soldiers. The other soldiers wanted to help him. But when they did, other, different looking ones, jumped them too. It happened quite quickly, but it was obvious that these shadows did something to the soldiers, causing them to disappear, leaving only something heart-shaped behind, which in turn changed into one such shadows.

"Yep, I'm pretty sure!" Jackson replied.

"Zats!" O'Neill figured, "We couldn't use our guns against them, so best thing we can do is stun them!"

"Do it!" Hammond authorized him, "I'd better be putting this base under lockdown!"

As the team ran to the weaponry, Carter had her own say: "Sir, I think it should be alright if we used guns."

"You... think?" O'Neill wasn't convinced.

"Well if I saw this right, these things really turn other people into... whatever they are themselves." Carter explained.

"That would explain why there were so many on that planet!" Jackson realized, "Since it was such a huge ship, which possibly carried so many people, it's possible they were all turned."

"I concur with Daniel Jackson and Major Carter." Teal'c was the one to convince O'Neill.

"Ah! That's what I like to hear!" O'Neill sounded happier.

It took the entire base a long time, but they managed to tear down the shadows anyhow. One type of them was easier to kill than the other, but that didn't stop anyone from stopping them.

Once they were sure they had killed the last one of them, they could seize fire. However, Carter had some disturbing news to report to everybody.

"Sir!" she started talking to O'Neill, "This may not be over yet."

O'Neill didn't seem to be eager to hear this: "Oh come on, Carter! How can this possibly not be over?"

"Major Carter is right." Teal'c agreed, "If these shadows somehow managed to open the Stargate to this world, they could open gates to other worlds as well."

"That's not all." Carter hadn't said everything yet, "I noticed unstable their wormhole was. If they could travel through subspace through an unstable wormhole, yet somehow still molecularise..."

"CARTER!" O'Neill stopped her from going to far with her techno-babble.

Indignantly, Carter summarized what she was about to say: "They may have entered different worlds which can't be accessed through the Gate."

"So rather than visiting Stargate-worlds alone..." Jackson sounded somewhat panicked.

"They could go anyplace, anywhere..." Carter paused, "... Any time."

Though as long as the shadows aren't in the base, everyone is happy, but the idea that they can suddenly pop up everywhere was somewhat disturbing.

**THE END**


	3. Leed's Castle

Disclaimer: "Primeval" is owned by Impossible Productions

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**Leed's Castle**

At Leed's Castle, England, an entire S.W.A.T. team had gathered themselves, securing the area around the castle. Once they were all set, a white pick-up truck arrived, in which there were four different people. One of them was a adventurer, named Steven. Another was an paleontology student, a real dinosaur lover and by many standards a nerd, called Conner. The third one was a young girl, who's an expert at everything related with lizards, named Abby. The fourth one, who's at the lead of them, was professor Nick Cutter, who immediately got out of his truck to see the woman, Claudia, who was coordinating the S.W.A.T.'s at the castle.

"Is it another anomaly?" was the professor's first question to Claudia.

"Hello to you too." she said indignantly, "And, we're not sure."

"What do you mean 'we're not sure'?" the professor asked.

"Well, our witnesses do talk of seeing monsters, but nothing that sounds like the usuals." Claudia answered.

"There are any usuals then?" the professor asked mockingly.

Claudia laughed faintly, but continued: "They talk of black creatures with yellow eyes, making some kind of creeping sound, sometimes naked, sometimes dressed like clowns."

This sounded new to the professor: "Clowns?"

"So the first clowns maybe got inspired by these things, then?" Conner asked, enthusiastically.

"A chameleon maybe?" Abby speculated, "Because it changes it's color depending on it's environment, it must have looked like a clown to the witness."

"Do chameleons sometimes walk on their hind legs alone, then?" Claudia asked, although she already knew the answer.

The whole team appeared to be surprised to hear this. Abby even stammered to say: "... No?"

"Well, according to our witnesses they did." Claudia said, "Also, they didn't even look like they were lizards of any type, more like... and that's where they can't say anything."

Steven appeared to be in deep thoughts, while the professor wondered: "They can't say anything? What does that mean?"

"They can't describe what it was they saw exactly, because they've never seen anything like it before." Claudia answered, "Unless they are all imagining things..."

"It rarely happens that men imagine the same things." the professor stated.

"Then they're hoaxing us." Claudia concluded.

"Can't we see where they were spotted?" Steven asked.

The four of them, not counting Claudia who was with them, got guided to the place where the creatures were first seen. It was a room, somewhere inside the castle. Immediately, upon entering, Steven noticed something in the far corner of the room. There was a pile of dust, which had left a peculiar footprint.

"This doesn't look like an animal footprint." Steven said out loud.

"An animal?" Claudia sounded surprised, "You mean this all was the work of a man?"

"It's not a man's either." Steven replied, "It looks to unnatural to be anything we know at all."

Meanwhile, Connor was looking at his compass, which had already started to go haywire.

"Professor!" he cried.

The professor looked at the compass. He took it out of Connor's hands, through which he pinpointed the location of whatever caused this: the anomaly. It got him to a nearby closet. The professor opened it, and found exactly what they were looking for from the start. It's crystal-lined and spinning glow wasn't new to anyone present, yet it was a sight they could never get used to.

"The anomaly." the professor whispered.

Suddenly, some kind of creeping sound could be heard, along with something that sounded like clouds coming together. When everyone turned to look at what caused these sounds, they saw the creatures which caused it: the black things with yellow eyes, some of which dressed like clowns, others naked, and the rest... looked like monkeys.

The women, and Connor, were the first and only ones to scream, as the creatures had started to gather themselves around every living person in the room. Every S.W.A.T.-member didn't scream, but found a way to compensate for their unwillingness to scream. Immediately upon seeing these things, they started shooting them.

"What in bloody hell are those?!" the leader of the S.W.A.T.-team, Ryan, asked.

"I... I have no idea!" the professor's guess was obviously as good as anyone else's.

"Professor look!" Abby shouted, as she pointed to the anomaly.

The professor looked at it, and noticed how some of these creatures kept coming from it. He immediately took a few steps backwards, leaving it up to Ryan to shoot them all.

"We've got ourselves a nest of these things on the other side!" Ryan figured, "We'd better go get the grenades!"

"Wait a minute!" the professor seemed to have a problem with this, "You can't just go there and blow them off!"

"We must take whatever precautions necessary to prevent an outbreak of these things in our own time." Ryan said.

"But..." the professor couldn't be convinced otherwise, "... surely, there must be some..."

He couldn't finish his sentence, for that's when Ryan had knocked him out cold. Steven was about to attack Ryan, who then raised his gun to stop him: "I'm sorry, but I had to do this."

Some time later, the professor woke up. He had been laid to rest on a bed, which was in the room. As soon as the professor woke up, he asked: "How long was I... asleep?"

"Abou' ten minutes." Conner answered.

"Has Ryan and his men gone through?" he asked desperately.

"Now see, Nick..." Claudia started, but got interrupted.

"No, you better see this!" the professor interrupted her, "If they go into the past, they may alter history in ways we cannot imagine! I've got to get them back here!"

He got up, while nobody even tried hard to stop him, and ran into the anomaly.

Once he had gotten through, he expected to see some kind of an ocean, or maybe even a desert. In any event, anything that may have been there millions of years ago, when there were no humans on the planet. What he didn't expected to see was... nothing but darkness. The skies were black, as were the grounds he walked upon. Though it would appear as though they were black with all the creatures that roamed it. Trying to ignore it, he tried to look for Ryan and his team. He found somebody, although he wasn't sure if it was Ryan. What he was sure of is the fact that it got attacked by what looked like a giant chameleon, which bore some kind of heart-shaped symbol on it's chest. The chameleon attacked the man, beating him to the ground. But the part which disturbed the professor the most was that the man didn't fall down and died, but rather disappeared, allowing another chameleon to appear instead, it's skin-color being of a more lighter hue than the other one's.

The professor decided he had seen enough, as he turned to run back through the anomaly. When he returned to his own time, he wondered whether he actually did step through, for what he saw in his own time looked exactly like what he saw in the past. The professor was afraid that Ryan would alter history, but now it turned out that those things, whatever they were, were the ones who altered it. The professor sank to his knees, not caring about the little black creatures who started to feast upon him, in their own way...

**THE END**


	4. Videoland

Disclaimer: "Captain S" is owned by PBC Productions

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**Videoland**

At our hero's high school, school had only just ended. He, who was called Chad, was with his two best best friends, Lunk and Becky, the latter of which was taking all the books she needed from her closet.

"This just isn't fair." Chad complained, "It's weekend. We're supposed to be having fun on the weekends. And they give us so much homework to do. Can you believe it?"

"No." Becky replied, flatly, "But I'm sure that they don't just give us so much just for their own fun."

"Why wouldn't they?" Lunk wondered, "Even teachers need to have fun from time to time."

As the three of them were about to take off, Chad felt it necessary to say: "The teachers can be so heartless sometimes."

As they disappeared from view, another student showed his face from behind his own locker's door. He gazed upon the three of them as he whispered to himself: "Heartless, hey..."

As he started chuckling, he showed off his Nintendo Power-Glove, to those who might be watching him.

Later that evening, Becky entered Chad's room. Under different circumstances, she would be far from surprised to see her friend playing games on his Mega Drive, but given something he said earlier, she couldn't believe the sight of it this time.

"I thought they had given you too much homework?!"

"They did." Chad replied, "But I got the whole weekend to do it. Until then, I'd..."

"And when exactly were you planning on starting with it?" Becky interrupted him.

"First thing in the morning." Chad replied.

"Are you sure?" Becky asked him.

"Yes, of course." Chad replied, "You know me!"

"Of course I do." Becky replied, "That's why I'm here in the first place."

Chad looked surprised, though his eyes were still set on the TV-screen: "Really?"

"I thought that if I'd help you, you have finished it sooner, so you'd have the whole weekend to have..."

"What is that?" Chad interrupted.

"Excuse me?" Becky didn't know what he was talking about.

"That on the screen." he pointed.

Becky looked on the screen. She noticed that there were some black things on it. Like Chad she didn't understand what they were either. They bore some features similar to insects, but the fact that some of them were bipedal made her think otherwise.

"Those things never appeared in the game before." Chad stated.

"Maybe because they don't belong in the game." Becky realized.

"In that case..." Chad said, as he laid his controller aside and was about to press the button on his belt.

Just before he could say anything, Becky stopped him: "Wait! You don't know what you're up against here!"

"Never do." Chad replied, although this wasn't at all assuring to Becky.

"SEGA!" Chad cried, as he disintegrated in the real world, and re-integrated in the game-world, known as Videoland.

"Okay..." Chad breathed, "So now what?"

He moved to the right side of the screen, where he arrived at the edge of a cliff. Once there, something that looked like a red flying lizard came flying to him.

"Wooh! What is that?" Chad shouted.

He jumped from the edge and punched the flying creature. A cloud appeared, as the creature disappeared. Chad, meanwhile landed on some kind of platform, which from the people looking at the screen appeared to be floating.

"Wow. Always wanted to know what these things really were doing here." Chad sounded satisfied.

"Chad!" Becky called from the real world, "There's another one coming!"

"Oh." Chad just saw it himself.

He continued through the game, tearing down one weird creature after the other. Until he finally reached something that looked like a clearing, where he met with the man responsible for this uproar.

"Nes..." Chad breathed, "I should have known."

"You're so pathetically predictable, Captain Slop." Nes, the man with the Power-Glove, laughed, "I knew that the Heartless were enough to draw you here."

"Heartless?" Chad sounded surprised, "Is that what these things are?"

"Yes." Nes replied, "Not particularly smart, but useful."

"What do you want with me?" Chad asked.

"Well..." Nes paused before continuing, "Right now, some of them are in your room."

"My room..." Chad panicked, "Becky!!!"

Chad waited for an answer, but heard nothing.

"Don't bother." Nes said, "She can hear you, but the Heartless are keeping her from talking. As soon as I give them the word, they will take over the real world, starting with your girlfriend."

"What!" though he was powerless, Chad wouldn't let this stop him, "First of all, she's not my girlfriend, and second of all, like I would let you do that!"

"Why don't we rock-paper-scissors on that." Nes suggested, "You win, and I'll leave the real world alone. I win and... well, you get the idea."

"You don't wanna fight for it!?" Chad had started laughing, "You're a real..."

"Hey!" Nes interrupted, "It is you who likes these so-called superior games, and this game is one of them. Can I help it that the developers wanted rock-paper-scissors to be the way to beat the game's bosses?"

Chad sighed: "Fine, let's get this over with."

And so they did. They took their positions, as a text on the screen appeared to explain the rules to play rock-paper-scissors. Either one of the players must choose either one of those three before the music stops. The music started, as the players were making their choices. But while the music played, Chad spotted something above his head. It was a cloud, which had a picture of his hand in it. When Chad choose paper, his cloud-hand stretched all of his fingers.

"Hey, that's not fair!" Chad whined.

Nes didn't listen to him, as the music had stopped: "Ready or not. One... two... three!"

Nes stretched only two of his fingers, which meant scissors, which was stronger than paper, which was Chad's selection.

"How could I win if you know what I'm choosing?" Chad kept whining.

"Like I said, I didn't create the game." Nes said, flatly.

That was a fact that Nes didn't create it. Because if he did, he wouldn't be so stupid to have such a cloud above his head as well, so Chad too can see what move Nes will make.

"Thanks for the tip, buddy!" Chad said.

Nes didn't know what that was about, but payed no attention to it. The music started again, then stopped again.

"One... two... three!" Nes exclaimed.

In this round, Chad had won.

"HA!" he shouted in joy, "In your face, Nes!"

"Don't cheer to soon." Nes reminded him, "Whoever wins the next round, wins the game."

Chad calmed down and focused. The music started and ended again.

"One... two... three!" Nes exclaimed.

Chad had closed his eyes as he made his move. He needed the words from Nes to know what was happening: "No... impossible..."

Chad opened his eyes, and saw that he had won the game.

"All right!" he cheered, "Now, you must let go of Becky, like you promised.

In the real world, what looked like men in armors were holding Becky. But once they got the order from Nes on the screen, they let go of her and made themselves disappear into thin air.

"Chad..." she started crying her eyes out as she rushed to the TV-screen to be closer to her friend, "I knew you could do it."

That's when something else started. The virtual landscape on the screen had started to look darker.

"What's going on?" she wondered.

Chad heard her, and saw the landscape changing too: "What are you doing?"

"I said I would leave the real world alone." Nes explained, "I didn't say I would leave Videoland alone too."

"You... you liar!" Chad was getting angry.

He ran towards Nes, but suddenly a whole army of Heartless appeared between them, keeping Chad from reaching his goal.

"I suggest you'd better leave us." Nes snickered, "Unless you want to turn into one of them."

Completely out of his control, Chad got thrown out of his TV-screen, and landed onto his friend Becky, nearly crushing her.

"Chad, get off me!" Becky only just managed to say.

Chad did as he was told, after which he looked at his screen, only to see how the Heartless had started to take over all of Videoland.

"I couldn't stop them..." Chad sounded like he was about to cry himself, "I... I failed..."

There was nothing else Becky could think of doing to comfort her friend, but to lay her hand on his shoulder.

**THE END**


	5. Nerd's Room

Disclaimer: based on the character created by James Rolfe

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**Nerd's Room**

He's gonna take you back to the past  
To play the shitty games that suck ass  
He'd rather have a buffalo  
take a diarrhea dump in his ear  
He'd rather eat the rotten asshole  
of a road killed skunk and down it with beer  
He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard  
He's the Angry Nintendo Nerd  
He's the Angry Atari Sega Nerd  
He's the Angry Video Game Nerd

_Song by Kyle Justin_

"OK, so a fan asked me to review 'Deep Duck Trouble', which is another Disney game, in this case starring Donald Duck, for Sega Master System." the Nerd began talking, "Now why would this fan think this to be a shitty game? Only one way to find out."

He went to his own Master System console, in which he inserted the game, after which he switched on the console and started playing.

**So the game starts when Donald and his three nephews are visiting their Uncle Scrooge, who... looks like he's been inflated like a balloon. That's where the shit already begins. Supposedly he's cursed because of some necklace he's found on an island. OK, I get that he's cursed, but inflating him like a balloon? What the fuck?**

"One thing you have to do when playing this game..." the Nerd explained, "... is suspending a lot of disbelief. Or better yet, suspend it all, 'coz from here on in, it only gets shittier."

The Nerd then picked up the box to which the game belonged: "For example when you look at the box, you can see Donald wearing the necklace himself. So when Scrooge wears it he gets cursed, but when Donald wears it he's okay? What were they thinking?!"

**When you start playing, you're at the island. Here you can choose where you wanna play first. The Jungle, the Volcano, the Ocean, or the Mountains. Let's pick the Jungle for a moment.**

**Oh, so you play as Donald Duck, which kinda makes you wonder what Huey, Dewey and Louie were doing back at Uncle Scrooge's, if they're not gonna be with Donald with this. Anyhow, the gameplay reminds me a little of any other game, where you have to jump on your enemy if you wanna kill him. Also, if you get closer to an object, such as this crate here, and press Button 1, you see Donald having his usual temper, he's angry with the crate so he kicks it. There are also these... I dunno, metal-looking things, which if Donald kicks them, they just roll away. The fuck?**

"Oh sure, a square object can roll away like that easily." the Nerd whined, "Fucking ass."

**Now, if you kick this here, you would easily take out these... I dunno, dogs I think, maybe wolfs. Although, since they come out of a hole they dug in the ground, they should really be moles. So whatever.**

At some point, on the screen, Donald is shown to kick some kind of treasure chest, which contained a chili pepper. Donald walks towards it, and when he touches it, he bends over, stretches himself out, and runs faster.

The Nerd looks at that, and makes his usual overacted look of surprise: "What the fuck?!"

On screen, Donald kept running, destroying everything on his path, including fiends.

**So we all know that chili peppers are supposed to make cartoon characters go crazy, but make them go faster is new. Unfortunately, it only lasts for a short time. You can find such peppers in every stage, and sometimes at the most impossible places, such as in this Volcano stage, where it can be found at the end of a level, where it's completely useless, as there are no enemies to kill. This sucks major balls. Or here at the Mountain stage, where when you take it you get stuck. Really, if you take the chili peppers, your directional button becomes useless, you can't steer Donald into the right direction. What were the developers on when they were making this game?!**

On the screen, Donald kicks another chest, which contains an ice-cream cone. And again the Nerd is confused with this: "Ice-cream? On a tropical island? And it hasn't melted until then? Now what does that remind me of? Oh yeah, the same thing happens in the Ducktales Game, where you play as Scrooge, who finds cakes and ice-cream in century-old places. It looks to me that Disney doesn't want their characters to get better health by herbs they may find on the island, which would have been to realistic. And maybe, they even thought that when letting the characters use herbs, they would get kids to start doing drugs. Of course, they wouldn't want their target audience to get addicted to whatever it was that the developers were using."

**In this game, if you pick up one cone, your health-meter will go up with one... what is this? A diamond? I'm not kidding. The health-meter is really a set of three diamonds. So the more diamonds Donald's got, the longer he'll live? And these diamonds are made through ice-cream cones? What in fucking hell where they thinking when they were high?! What would they use if you wanna fully restore the health-meter!?**

Donald walks on the screen, uses another one of his temperal kicks to open another chest, in which he finds some kind of roasted bird. The very sight of this was enough to have the nerd almost get a nervous breakdown: "What the fuck?! So they wouldn't let Donald use drugs, but they would let him resort to cannibalism? It's eating rotted pickles with diarrhea sauce if you're playing this game!"

**But okay, let's calm down for a moment. Let's see what happens when you get to the boss. One thing that makes this game different from others is that in here you don't actually fight the boss, you're instead running away from him. This is very unlike the Donald Duck in the 'Kingdom Hearts' games, where he at least stayed and fight himself, while in here he's running away like any duck would do if ya chase him. This chase would be fun, if only Donald wouldn't run so slow! If you press the directional button, he will go faster, but then I can't see if he'll hit something, like these... spikes or whatever. In the Jungle stage, you get chased by a gorilla, in the Ocean stage it's a shark, a falcon in the mountains and rocks from an erupting volcano in the... do I really gotta say which stage?**

"Well then, here's something I don't understand." the Nerd said, "The idea of this game is that you have to collect some things from around the island in order to let a castle appear in the end. You only know this because according to Scrooge's diary, which Donald reads at moments in the game. Now here's the tricky part."

**In the Ocean stage, you get chased by the shark, who loses in the end, of course, and as you can see, he leaves his teeth behind. One of them is made out of gold... Wait a minute! A shark's got a golden tooth? What the fuck! And probably, Scrooge went through the same trouble to get this tooth, but why would he want to put it back in the shark's mouth? And how? This sucks some major shit! I'd rather be eating my own shit, mixed with radio-active waste, than to sit here and play this stupid game!**

Suddenly, something appeared on his screen. The Nerd didn't know what it was, it looked like some kind of a black shadowy creature. The Nerd didn't care. He just thought it was another fiend in the game, which he loathed so much anyhow.Angrily, the Nerd got up, takes the game out of the console, throws it to the floor and then lets his pants down. The idea was that he would dump some of his own shit on the game cartridge, but he picked the wrong time to do it.

"Fuck!" the Nerd swore, "I don't gotta take a shit! Maybe I should drink something."

The Nerd left his room, to get himself something to drink. What he didn't know, however, was that the cartridge had began to tremble out of it's own, as if there was something inside it, trying to get out.

The Nerd had come down to his kitchen, where he looked inside his fridge. Inside, he found a green bottle of white transparent liquid, which he for whatever reason calls beer. He took the bottle out of the fridge, after which he closed it's door. Behind the fridge's door, however, there was something that looked like the shadowy creature he saw in the game earlier. He got spooked at the sight of this, but also since he got a better look at it up close, he realized what this creature really is.

"A Heartless?!" he exclaimed, "How did that get here?!"

He didn't get much of a chance for an answer, as more of them appeared behind this one Heartless. The Nerd looked terrified at this, but remembering what he saw in the game, he decided to look for some peppers in his closet. He turned around and opened a few closets, as fast as he could, but he couldn't find anything.

"Shitpickle. Shitpickle." he heard someone say.

He turned his head, only to see a walking pickle, with a face and with shit on his head. Staying true to his earlier statement, he made his decission.

"You'll have to do." he said, as he picked up Shitpickle and ate it.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIII..." Shitpickle exclaimed as he was being devoured.

After eating this, the Nerd indeed started running faster, killing every Heartless that came in his path. Unfortunately, just like in the game, he could only go forward, not backward or left or right. Even in 3D, doing this was neatly impossible. Once the effects had worn off, however, he turned around, only to see that more Heartless kept coming... from up the stairs.

"They wouldn't come from my room?" the Nerd wondered.

Hoping to get any wiser, he ran to his room.

As he feared, his room was infested with them. And for some reason, they appeared to be fixed on his TV. When he looked closer, he saw what it was that made them so fixed on it: a huge keyhole shape had appeared on it.

"This world's keyhole is in my TV?" the Nerd appeared surprised to see this, "Well, why won't you fucks go and get it!"

He ran to his TV-set, used his own temperal kick, and as if the TV had wheels of it's own, it rolled off the cupboard it was kept in, and hit every Heartless in it's path. Just as the Nerd was about to make his triumphant cheer, the TV had hit him too, knocking him out cold. Once the Nerd was out of the way, some of the Heartless had made their way onto the TV and started to dismantle it from the top to the bottom, until they made their way into the heart of this world...


	6. Lotto Arena

Disclaimer: the song "What I've done" is written and performed by Linkin Park, as also mentioned in this story

**

* * *

**

**Lotto Arena**

In this concert hall, the band known as Linkin Park were to perform. They had finished with one song, after which they began their next. No matter what it was that the band said to their fans, the fans kept screaming at them no matter what they say. The music of their next song had already started. The fans recognized it, as they all screamed for more. Hearing them, the band would become more nervous, but they had gotten used to this by now, so they managed to control their nerves, as their lead singer began singing.

"In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi"

Despite all the noise, he could hear the fans sing along with the song.

"Cause I've drawn regret, from the truth, of a thousand lies"

Suddenly something caused the fans to scream louder. The band had no idea what it was, but since they had a show to perform, they had no time to figure it out.

"So let mercy come, and wash away, what I've done"

Trying to stay focused, above all the screaming fans, the lead singer had closed his eyes.

"I'll face myself, to cross out what I've become, erase myself, and let go of what I've done"

Opening his eyes only slightly, the lead singer noticed that the entire hall had turned black at the back, and that the crowd had become wilder than earlier.

"Put to rest, what you thought of me, while I've cleaned this slate, with the hands, of uncertainty"

The guards near the stage had a hard time keeping the fans away.

"So let mercy come, and wash away"

The other band members, too, had noticed that something was off with the fans. Either fans from this country are wilder than fans from other countries, or something else is wrong.

"What I've done, I'll face myself, to cross out what I've become, erase myself, and let go of what I've done"

Suddenly, something went wrong with the stage too. Some of the lights had started to break apart, causing sparks to fly around. The band only narrowly managed to avoid anything that fell down from above them. Luckily for them, the stage hadn't completely fallen apart yet, and as the old saying goes: The show must go on!

"For what I've done, I start again, and whatever pay may come"

Not one member of the band noticed, but from somewhere behind the stage, whatever was causing this entire concert hall to go haywire, had now set it's sights on the band.

"Today this ends, I'm forgiving what I've done"

The little black creatures crawled upon the stage.

"I'll face myself, to cross out what I've become"

Their first victim was the band's D.J.

"Erase myself, and let go of what I've done"

Then came the drummer. While the lead singer kept repeating the last three words of the chorus, the creatures had already attacked the entire band, until the lead singer was the only one left. Only when the music stopped, the singer had turned around to see the little black creatures. At the sight of them, he wanted to run away, but everywhere he wanted to go, he could find more of them. He was surrounded, with nowhere to go.

**THE END**


	7. Dekabase

Disclaimer: "Dekaranger" is owned by Toei Company.

* * *

**Dekabase**

Earlier that day, the Special Police Detectives, also known as the Dekarangers, had met with an entire group of little black humanoid creatures. What they were was uncertain, but the Dekarangers had enabled themselves to capture one of them, while the rest got killed in self-defense, as they called it.

Once back at the base, the team had somehow managed to keep one such creature out cold and kept it inside a sort of glass container.

"What is this?" Doggy, the Dekaranger's boss, asked them.

"We're not sure." Hoji, the blue guy of the team, replied, "These things had suddenly appeared out of nowhere."

"As it appeared, they took something from people that was shaped like a heart." Sen, the team's green guy, explained, "Each one of these hearts then changed into this creature, or similar ones that bear some strange heart-shaped symbol."

"It's like they take something from people and turn it into something evil!" Ban, the red hot-headed guy, cried angrily.

"Let me take a look at them." Jasmine, the team's yellow girl and psychic, said. She took off her glove, opened the container, closed her eyes and touched the black creature. She had barely closed her eyes or touched the creature, or she pulled her hand away. She nearly fainted, but someone stood right behind her to catch her.

"What?" Doggy asked, "What did you see?"

"Nothing." Jasmine replied, "No emotions, no real thoughts,... there was nothing but darkness in there."

"No emotions or anything?" Tetsu, the team's white guy, sounded surprised, "They sound like heartless creatures."

"Well, now we have a name for these things!" Umeko, the pink and cheerful girl, exclaimed, "The Heartless."

"Funny you'd call them that, considering where they come from." the one to catch Jasmine said.

"Did we ask for your opinion, Westerner?" Ban asked him.

The westerner, called Wells, who was the one in silver in the team, and new, sighed: "I don't think naming them is more important than the threat these things form."

"He's right." Jasmine agreed.

"Why would he not be!" Ban grumbled.

Sen was thinking out loud: "... I wonder..."

He went to the nearest wall and stood on his hands.

"Here we go again." Wells sighed.

"Hey!" Ban shouted, "Show some respect!"

"The respect you didn't show him in the beginning yourself, Ban?" Jasmine laughed.

"I got it!" Sen exclaimed, as he got back to his feet, "Notice how these antennas of his keep moving, even when it's unconscious?"

"That is indeed peculiar." Doggy remarked.

"They seem to act like bugs." Tetsu added.

"Ewww..." Umeko added.

"Usually when bugs do this..." Wells stated, "... they're sensing something."

"But what would they be sensing, Wells?" Hoji asked, arrogantly.

"Only one way to find out." Sen replied for him, "We let it go."

While Wells merely raised an eyebrow, the other ones dropped their jaws and opened their mouths widely.

Wells remarked: "Now really, aren't you guys overdoing that a little."

Sen explained: "What I'm saying is that when we let it go, and all the while keeping it from hurting anyone..."

"It would lead us to whatever it's searching!" Doggy finished the sentence for him.

"That's exactly what we expect from Sen-chan!" Ban complimented the aforementioned.

Wells rolled his eyes: "Let's not talk about what to expect from you."

This enraged Ban, but Jasmine had cut in: "Let's execute the plan."

Somewhere outside of Dekabase, they released the Heartless. A few minutes after it's release, it awoke and followed it's antennas' senses. It crawled into the underground, where it met up with more of it's kind. This surprised the Dekarangers, as they thought they had taken care of all the other ones, but now it appeared they were wrong.

After a seemingly endless amount of time, the Heartless made it's way to an underground tunnel. At the very end of it, there was something that looked like a huge keyhole.

"That's weird." Hoji said, "My License's scanner is going haywire."

"Mine too." Sen added.

"I think they all do." Jasmine said.

"What does that mean?" Ban wondered.

"That there's something behind that keyhole that shouldn't get into the wrong hands." Wells figured.

"Then we'd better not stay here and wait!" Tetsu decided.

"Don't you think we should wait first?" Hoji asked.

"Wait for what?" Wells questioned, "For Donald Duck and Goofy to show up?"

Apart from Hoji, and Ban, everyone laughed. They all raised their Licenses, stroke their pose and shouted their catchphrase: "Emergency! Dekaranger!"

Wells, who found doing as such a waste of time, decided to merely press the button on his License, changed into his Dekasuit, or in other words change into Dekasilver, and attacked the Heartless. Once the other Dekarangers had changed into their suits too, they joined Dekasilver.

With every weapon they've got at hand, they took down every single one of these Heartless. This didn't go unnoticed however, as the Heartless' leader, something which had the same size as humans, ditto shape, safe for the fact it was completely blackish blue, quite muscular and wielded what looked like a mixture of a sword and a chainsaw. Although it didn't have wings, it appeared to be floating above the ground.

Ban, now called Dekared, was the first to take notice of this other Heartless. He raised both of his guns, with which he shot at that leader. All it did was swing with blade and managed to dodge all of Dekared's bullets.

Hoji, now Dekablue, hid himself somewhere, away from all the Heartless. Doing so, he hoped that the leader would not take notice of him. Dekablue used his sniper-rifle and shot the leader. He hit him, but it didn't appear to weaken him one bit. Instead, it got him to turn around and throw his sword at Dekableu.

Sen, or Dekgreen, jumped himself to the sword, and with his knuckle on his hand he punched the sword, causing it to fall out of it's trajectory.

"Fire-fist!" Tetsu, or Dekabreak, shouted, as he used his weapon to shoot fire at this Heartless leader.

"D-rod!" Jasmine and Umeko, or Dekayellow and Dekapink, shouted together, as they used their rods against the now defenseless Heartless-leader.

With this, the leader was now surrounded by six out of seven Dekarangers, as the seventh was still fighting off all the other Heartless.

Dekablue had held up his License, to request it's deletion to the highest court, but received nothing. After that, he looked on his License and said: "They're not responsible for what a dead body does, they say!"

"Well then, since they consider it as a dead body..." Dekagreen stated.

"We can do with it whatever we want!" Dekapink cheered.

"Alright!" Dekared joined in with the cheer.

The leader, however, used some kind of power of his, which got it's sword back in it's hands. With this, he somehow dematerialized all the remaining Heartless and consumed their powers into itself, causing it to change into a giant version of itself. This giant version became so big, it was too much for the tunnel to hold. Upon taking giant proportions, the Heartless made a hole into the tunnel's roof, allowing it to stretch out, back to the surface.

With this, Dekared used his License to contact Dekabase: "Deka-machines! Launch!"

All of the Dekarangers' Deka-machines arrived. Five of them combined into what's called Dekaranger Robo, one other transformed into what's called Dekabike Robo, and the last one transformed into what's called Robo Chopper. Since the former two like to make a show out of their combinations and/or their transformations, the Heartless in front of them used some kind of a sphere-shaped force-field on them, which rendered them immobilized. As if they were basketballs, he started bouncing them around. Through this, the Heartless had taken no notice of a third robot. Since that robot was really a helicopter, transformed into a robot, it started spinning it's rotor-blades, which hit the Heartless, causing it to release the other two robots.

"Alright!" Dekared shouted, "Enough playing fool around! Let's use Justice Flasher!"

From one of Dekaranger Robo's legs, a gun emerged, which got pointed towards the Heartless.

One by one, the five Dekarangers counted down: "Five... four... three... two... one."

In unison, they shouted: "Strike out!"

With one powerful blow, the Heartless was defeated.

"With this, case closed!" Dekared said.

"Let's hope so." Dekasilver wasn't so sure about that.

**THE END**

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Note: the character "Wells/Dekasilver" is mine


	8. Camp Crystal Lake

Disclaimer: based on characters created by Wes Craven, Victor Miller, Damien Shannon and Mark Swift. The character "Kane" is mine.

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**Camp Crystal Lake**

A guy wakes up in a van. His head ached quite a bit, so he couldn't think of where he was or how he got there. He somehow managed to open his eyes, although they were out of focus at this point. Despite that, he could recognize the seat he was sitting at, which was behind the steering wheel. While his eyes slowly got back into focus, he saw that a tree in front of him was broken into two halves, although the van in question had not hit it. That's when he remembered how he got here.

He, along with his girlfriend, were driving their way out of the woods, when suddenly something, somehow, jumped onto the roof and punched his way through the roof. This something, or rather someone's arm had managed to knock the driver out cold, while his girlfriend tried to keep control over the van. Into doing so, the assailant retracted his arm, after which he threw his machete through the windshield. In order to protect her boyfriend, the girl jumped in front of him and took the machete. This heroic act of hers got the driver to wake up, after which he decided to hit the breaks, causing the assailant to fly away.

The rest was all a blur, but judging from the tree a few meters in front of the van, the driver decided that the assailant had hit that tree. Upon remembering this, he panicked.

"Isabelle..." he whispered, as he turned to look at his girlfriend.

What he saw then was something that will forever haunt his mind. His girlfriend wasn't there! Instead, he found a human skeleton, who's flesh was recently torn off, and wore his girlfriend's clothes. This couldn't be...?

The very thought alone that this could be his girlfriend, or rather what's left of her, got him in a state that was beyond shock, panick, grieve,... anything you can think of. A lot of emotions went through his head, causing it to hurt more than it did earlier. He had trouble breathing, so he opened the door and ran out of the van.

Outside, he leaned against a nearby tree. He didn't know what to do or how he felt. He thought he had to vomit, but nothing came out. Somehow, he felt completely numb, as he couldn't feel the tree or the ground he touched. Just seeing the remains of your girlfriend, how does one react to that? He tried to keep his head clear of everything, then tried to think of what may have happened. The assailant that got him in this situation, he knew him quite well, or at least well enough. He's capable of a lot of things, but not this, so he couldn't be behind that. So who or what did? For that matter, why did "it" do this to her and not him?

"Kane..." someone hissed.

The driver, Kane, shifted his head. He heard that voice before, but didn't think he'd hear it again. Suddenly, some kind of creeping sound made itself heard. He looked down, as he thought that the sound came from beneath him. What he saw then, he wasn't sure. Either something came out of the shadows, or the shadows took a more physical form. In either case, some things showed themselves, which were causing the creeping sounds he heard. He wasn't sure what they were, or how to describe them best, especially since he has become to emotional to think strait. The best thing he could think of doing was to run away from these things.

Kane ran as fast as he could, but more of these creatures kept showing themselves, making it very hard for him to go anywhere at all. Somehow, he managed to shake off these creatures, which left him somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Trying to find his breath again, he suddenly heard another peculiar sound. He turned around to check what may be causing it. He saw three little girls, playing with jump-ropes. If seeing something like this in the middle of the woods wasn't strange enough, the girls weren't singing anything, but rather making some kind of low screeching sound, and each of them had a deep black skin, too black for them to even be natural, plus they didn't have any real faces, save for two circular yellow eyes. Now that Kane thought about it, they looked a lot like those other things that he saw, coming from the shadows. But that wasn't what bothered him, since not one of the girl-esque creatures attacked him. Remembering what happened to him before he got inside the van, and seeing these girls, it could only mean one thing. Before he could even think of what he concluded, he felt something breathing on his head. He looked up, and there he saw him: a man with a red-and-green striped sweater, a burnt face, and knives for nails on his right hand. The man Kane knew as Freddy Krueger. Freddy, who appeared to be floating at the top of the tree, suddenly became heavy to gravity as he fell back down, about to land upon Kane. If he ran in one direction, he'd run into the girl-esque creatures, but oif he ran into another, he'd run into more of them. Whichever way Kane could run into, he took that one, only narrowly being missed by Freddy's claw attack. Kane's run didn't last long, as he had nearly hit someone else. This someone else was the one who had attacked him in the van earlier: a big man, both in length and in width, wearing a hockey mask to hide his face. This was the man Kane knew as Jason Voorhees. Jason swung his machete, which Kane could dodge just in time by dropping himself to the ground. Despite that, he heard the machete hit something metallic. He looked up to see what happened. By the looks of it, Freddy had moved himself to meet with Jason.

"You..." Freddy hissed, angrily.

While Kane crawled away, the two men started their fight, like they had done before the incident with the van. Kane used this in his advantage to run from them.

When he did, however, he ran into the girl-esque creatures, who took off their girlish clothes, revealing themselves to be something what looked like female monkeys. Kane didn't know what to do, especially since all of the other creatures showed themselves as well. That's when a revelation came to him. Knowing Freddy Krueger's M.O., whatever Kane's living through at this moment could not be real, it all had to be a dream. He focused his thoughts into one thing, and next thing he knew was that a sword appeared in his hands. He tried to swing it, but it was too heavy to even lift up. But since this is all a dream, he tried even harder to use the sword. And before he knew it, he could use it against these shadowy creatures.

Meanwhile, Jason and Freddy were still in a battle, which had somehow even lead them to the very place near the lake, known as Camp Crystal Lake. Freddy used everything he had at his disposal, but nothing he did could stop Jason. Every time Jason was down, he would just get up, like nothing happened to him.

"Why won't you die!?" Freddy shouted angrily, nearly expecting Jason to be stupid enough to answer the question.

Jason, however, hasn't said a word since his well known incident back in the fifties, so even if he knew why he wouldn't die, there's nothing that could bring him to say it out loud. This alone angered Freddy enough. What he did then was not clear. He bend his legs, made his upper body go up and down, making sounds with his mouth, almost as if sucking something up.

With Kane, it didn't matter how many creatures he killed, as more of them kept coming. Suddenly, as if a strong wind blew them away, they all flew away from him. This appeared weird to Kane, despite knowing that all this was a dream. Although it was in his advantage that something blew them away, Kane himself didn't feel anything, so what could possibly be causing any of this? He followed the trail of these flying creatures, hoping to find more answers.

Jason, meanwhile, couldn't figure out what it was that Freddy was doing, but didn't care much either. He punched Freddy in the face, after which he kicked him into the lake. Upon doing so, all the shadowy creatures followed Freddy into the lake. Not too long after that, a more giant version of Freddy emerged from the lake. This giant version was big enough to fit the entire lake, as the sight of it had disappeared with the appearance of this giant Freddy. Also, only his upper body stuck out from the lake, which allowed him to grab hold of Jason more easily.

As Freddy held Jason in his left hand, Kane arrived at the scene. He was appalled by the sight of a giant Freddy. How does one fight something like this? That's when Kane saw something else. There were what looked like black domes, set on several spots on Freddy's body. The black of these domes were of the same hue as the creatures he saw earlier. Kane guessed, or rather hoped, that Freddy only became this big because he somehow sucked up the power from all the creatures. In either case, Kane could think of only one thing to do.

"Hey, Krueger!" he shouted.

Freddy turned his head to look at Kane. Infuriated, he used his giant claw to attack Kane. Into doing so, Freddy made it easier for Kane to reach for the black domes on his body, and destroy them with just one sway of his sword. He managed to do so, until there was just one dome left, which was on Freddy's belly.

"Over here!" Kane shouted.

Still in fury, Freddy tried to hit Kane with his claw. Kane dodge-rolled, causing Freddy to destroy the dome himself. Into doing so, he had lost all strength he had earlier, giving Jason a chance to finish the job. He crawled out of Freddy's hand, climbed his way onto the head, after which he shoved the machete into Freddy's right eye. This somehow caused Freddy to grow smaller, until both he and Jason disappeared into the lake's waters.

Upon their disappearance, Kane could no longer hold up the sword, as it became too heavy for him again. Once it hit the ground, it vanished into thin air. All this proved that Freddy is gone now, as the dream isn't intense enough without Freddy to allow anyone to dream of anything to defend themselves. This way, Kane felt tired beyond anything, so he dropped down on his knees, hoping to not have to get up anymore. He tried to lean on his right arm, but this for some reason felt too painful. Why he couldn't understand, as the creatures did nothing to hurt his arm. But that wasn't his only concern, as he heard something move in the waters. Jason had survived the fight with Freddy, as he emerged from the lake, about ready to slay him. Kane didn't have the strength anymore to do anything, not even scream for help, so he shook instead. His shaking, however, felt weird, as though there was something else that shook him.

"Kane. Can you hear me?" a voice called, probably belonging to the one that shook him awake.

Kane slowly opened his eyes. He didn't know the man he saw, but judging from his clothing, he figured it was a doctor.

"You were out for quite a while there." the doctor said, "I was already starting to worry whether you fell into a coma."

Kane, apparantly having not heard a word of what the doctor said, whispered: "... Isabelle...?"

"I'm here!" someone exclaimed, although Kane couldn't see her until he turned his head to the left.

He sighed of relieve to see his girlfriend, still alive, still having all her flesh.

"You'll both be fine." the doctor assured them, "You just don't try to use your arm for anything just yet."

That's when Kane remembered that Jason had managed to break his arm, while attacking them while they were driving the van.

"I'll just leave the two of you." the doctor said, after which he left the room.

**THE END**


	9. Rat Streets

Disclaimer: "Spawn" is created by Todd McFarlane

* * *

**The Rat Streets**

Two bums were in the streets. Suddenly, a 12-year-old kid had decided to walk through these alleys, seemingly unaware of what he'd find here. The two bums saw him and got up to walk towards the kid.

"Hey, kid!" one of them called, "Whatcha doin' here?"

The kid turned around, terrified to talk, but replied either way: "I... I'm just on my way home."

"What're you doin' out late?" the other bum asked.

"I..." the kid became more terrified to speak, as the two bums moved closer.

"Ain't ya supposed to be at home?" the first spoke.

"Watchin' your good old television?" the second continued.

With every step they took, the kid took one backwards. Suddenly he decided to make a run.

"Hey! Come back here, you little turd!" the first one yelled.

"You gotta learn to respect your elders!" the second one added.

The kid didn't listen to them. He tried to run as fast as he could, but by the sounds of the two bums' own footsteps, they were too fast for him. Suddenly, there came a loud grunt from both of them, followed by two thuds. He didn't know what caused them, but he didn't care, as he ran away without looking back.

What attacked the bums, neither one of the two knew. All they did know is that the assailants were considerably smaller, completely black, yellow-eyed and vicious. The two tried to fight them back, but it was too late for both of them.

From a small distance, somebody observed this. He saw how the little black creatures attacked the two, then took something from them, causing the two to disappear, allowing two more of these creatures to appear. That someone raised himself to meet with these creatures.

Other people, who witnessed the two being attacked by these black things, decided to make a run for it themselves. But as they ran away from them, they ran into other, similar creatures. One of these things jumped on these people. They all raised their arms to cover their heads. When they did so, the creatures didn't jump on them. quite the contrary, something stopped them. They all opened their eyes, to see someone standing between them and the creatures.

"Get outta here!" this someone shouted at them.

The people, knowing what they could expect from this man, decided to run away.

The man, to many known as Spawn, snickered at the sight of these black creatures: "You little shits think you can take over the world, don't you?!"

The creatures did not appear to hear much of the words he said. They jumped at him, but Spawn used his chains to crush them. Although he had crushed these, there were others in the streets. He allowed his cape to change into an axe and used it to slice some of them. In doing this, he made his way somewhere, where he had hidden some of his personal guns. Once he found them, he used all the heaviest and most effective to annihilate them.

It was a losing battle for the black creatures, as Spawn was too strong and had too powerful weapons for them to bear.

"Had enough already?" Spawn sighed.

Suddenly, he heard more screams. Only this time, they didn't come from the alleys he's familiar with. He ran out of the streets and into the more crowded ones of this city. Here, he saw more of them, bigger in size and greater in number.

"All right..." Spawn whispered, "... have it your way!"

He fought as many of them as he could, took whatever shape he could take, called forth whatever soul he could use, used every weapon he had at his disposal, but none of them appeared to be effective enough to take them all out. In the end, he could think of only one thing to do. He used all of his powers to create a portal. This portal, which looked like a green circle, floating in mid-air, was strong enough to suck in all these black creatures. With this, the city was saved.

When Spawn returned to his usual spot, he met with an old man, who spoke to him: "Do you at all realize what you've done?"

"Yes!" Spawn sounded indignant, "I just got rid of these little shits."

"By opening a portal that brings them to the past?" the old man questioned.

"By sending them somewhere where I know there are people who'd love nothing more than to fight these things." Spawn corrected him.

"For all of our sakes, I hope you haven't done anything that'll change the world as we know it." the old man said, after which he turned away and left Spawn.

**THE END**


	10. Lakeside Coliseum

Disclaimer: "Soul Calibur" and related characters are owned by Namco. The narrator of the story is mine

* * *

**Lakeside Coliseum**

The Mantis Wars had been raging for as long as I could remember. But with each battle I fought, I wondered how much trouble this was worth, as the outcome of it never changed our next move. We lost a battle, we must be more determined to win the next, and if we did win a battle, we must continue to fight to avenge our brothers who were lost in battle. We must do this, we mustn't do that,... it's always been the same. In the end, it would only come down to this: that whoever wins will be the leader of a new nation, and those who become part of this new nation must put aside their own traditions, rules and everything, only because their new leader wants it, but not because he has any good reason to do it, only because he feels it's right.

Put into other words, all that every leader really wants is to gain supreme power over the world, nothing more. If I were to be the world's leader, I would do it all differently. I would set up rules, not just based on old traditions or superstitions, but upon truth and reason. But being a mere soldier, destined to die in a meaningless battle, who am I to make such changes?

When I arrived at the Lakeside Coliseum, I finally found the answer I was looking for. Someone had organized a competition, in which warriors were to fight to the finish. Whoever would be left standing, or rather left alive, would win a grand price of many gold. If I would participate in such a competition, and win that price, not only would I gain the wealth I want, I would also gain the fame I need to change this world forever. No matter what the price that I must pay, I will participate in this game and I will win this!

The first battle was mine. I was to fight a man, who was about just as old as me, who wielded what looked like a red rod. Before we could fight, a man spoke to everybody. This odd-looking man, he had long brown hair and a greenish sort of skin. Given that appearance, he was something you'd rather not keep your eyes on, however I must compliment him on his taste of clothes, as he wore a long black coat, just like I always wear, even when in battle.

"The rules are simple!" the man shouted through the coliseum, "These first battles are to determine who's the strongest to go to round two! In here, you may kill your opponent, but you don't need to! From round two, you must fight to death! In round three, the two left standing will fight to death, and the winner shall fight me! Are we all clear on that?! Good! Round one! Fight!"

My opponent was a tough one, but his rod was nothing against my huge sword, as it easily snapped it into two pieces. I wish I could have killed him, but he refused to fight without the proper weapons. My next opponent was someone who used a sword and a shield, a bow and arrow, dressed in a green suit and with pointy ears. He had all the strength, but gave up in the end as well. From then on, I went to round two,... which wasn't at all what I imagined it to be. My opponents were what looked like black shadowy creatures, one acting and looking even weirder than the other. In the end, I managed to win every battle with those things, so I was to continue to round three.

Before me stood a man in azure armor. I didn't know what this man was, assuming it even was a man, but he too wielded a giant blade, which had an eye of it's own. Weird as it appeared, I was not entirely surprised to see it, as I had read of this sword before. Could this be...?

"For only one of you, this will be your last battle!" the odd man shouted, interrupting my thoughts, "Whoever wins, will have the honour to fight me! Now, final battle... fight!"

No matter how strong my previous opponents were, no matter how much I had to endure during the war, they were all nothing, when compared with fighting this azure knight. The fight was tiring, I was almost certain I would not win it, until... I got help from an unsuspecting ally.

The shadowy creatures I had to fight before, there appeared to be more of them. Enough to take down both me and the knight. They were planning to do as such, but only to me and not the knight. The knight took this opportunity to his advantage, as those creatures appeared docile when near him. He slashed them all, awaited for that red and black thing to float away, which the knight then absorbed.

"Souls... give me strength!" he exclaimed.

Into doing this, he managed to make all the other creatures to surround him, they even appeared to forget that I was here too. In either event, the knight now had his hands full to take them down and absorb their strength. In doing so, he didn't pay attention to what he was doing, which caused him to fall out of the ring and into the water.

"Ringout!" the odd man shouted, after which he jumped away from his seat and into the ring.

"So..." he hissed, "... you're the only one left standing. Think you can defeat me?"

I couldn't say anything, but even if I could do so, even if I said I was or wasn't ready, it wouldn't matter as he would fight me either way. Wielding something that looked like a spade, which was the last thing I expected he would use as a weapon, he attacked me. I had barely any strength left in my body to lift up my sword, so it didn't take long before the odd man had defeated me. It took him one mere slash on my chest, and I fell down to the ground, unable to fight again.

The odd man was about to turn away and go, but that's when the azure knight had climbed his way back into the ring.

"There!" the knight exclaimed, "I have defeated all of your shadows. Now... you must fight me!"

"You've been defeated by a ringout." the odd man said, "You cannot fight me any more."

"Then I will just take your soul." the knight hissed, as he raised his sword.

The odd man used his own weapon to fend off the knight. Not only was he, in the odd man's opinion, a worthy opponent, there was something about the sword he used which caught his attention.

"Such a powerful blade you use." the odd man said, flatly, "It could come in handy, when I face the Keyblade master."

With one wave of his hand, the odd man pushed the azure knight away, with such a force, it caused him to fly away into the spectator's tribune. This alone was enough to scare the spectators away from this fight.

The odd man looked at what he had just caused, but didn't care. The azure knight had dropped his blade, so he decided to pick it up. What he didn't anticipate, however, was me. He may have mortally wounded me, but I had just about enough strength left in me to pick up my own sword and ram it into the odd man's back. Thus, the man was beaten, and strange as it looked, he vanished before my eyes. Hoping that the azure knight's sword was what I thought it was, I dropped my own and reached to pick it up. Unfortunately, I had overestimated myself, as I couldn't reach for it, fell down, and slept, knowing that I'll never wake up.

What it was that got me to wake up again, I'll never know. Was it the power I had unleashed when destroying the odd man? Was it the azure knight who thought of using me as a puppet, but got stopped before he could completely control me? Or was it something else, in which case I wonder what was it that caused this? I had no way of knowing it, but what I did know is that I had become something that didn't belong in the realm of the living. I do not know how I could still be standing, nor why it was that I couldn't touch anything, aside for the clothes I wore when I died, nor why it was that I could only touch things while wearing this. Whichever the answer, I knew that I had to find the azure knight's sword again. Even more so, as what the odd man had said suggested that the sword is a lot more powerful than the one blade he feared. If this one blade was so powerful to defeat so powerful an opponent, and the knight's sword was stronger, I had found what I needed to fulfil my dreams.

Over time, I forgot my name, but in time I had found myself a new one. As well had I learned what may have caused these black creatures to appear, or what that odd man was. Under my new name, Damien, I shall use my new found strength and knowledge to find the sword.

**THE END**

* * *

Note: for those of you familiar with one of my other stories, namely "Soul Calibur 2005": yes, this is the same Damien.


	11. ABC Studios

Disclaimer: based on a format created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson

Note: This chapter is meant to be satirical, therefor one or two things (about the show or the people in it) may be depicted falsely.

* * *

**ABC Studios**

Across the studios a somewhat high-pitched voice can be heard: "Hey there, everybody! Welcome to 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?'. At tonight's show:..."

The voice then introduced the four men on the stage:

" "This time I'll fight" Wayne Brady!"

" "Woh, what's that" Greg Proops!"

" "No heart no friends" Colin Mochrie!"

" And "What took you so long" Ryan Stiles!"

That's when the man who's doing the voice let's himself be seen: "And I'm your host, Drew Carey! Let's go and have some fun!"

He then ran down to the stage and took his place behind the desk.

"Welcome to 'Who's Line is it anyway?'." the man, Drew, started, "The show where everything's made up and the points don't matter. That's right, the points are like having a heart, with all those Heartless out trying to get it."

The reaction to this by the audiance was devided, as some people didn't think it funny to not have a heart.

"Everyone watches 'The Hour of Power' here." Drew said under his breath, "Anyway, let's start with a game called "Let's make a date". This is for all four of you.

The four contestants get up, each take a chair, and sit down on a different chair each, with Greg taking one away from the other three.

"Ryan, Colin and Wayne are contestants in a dating show, and Greg has to pick which one he wants to date." Drew explained, "However, they will each act out a different character that is described inside those envelopes."

The three guys open their envelopes, and each expressed their surprise and/or repulsion at what's on it.

"Remember that they have never read those envelopes before, and neither has Greg who has to guess who they are in the end." Drew continued, "Take it away!"

"Hi!" Greg opens the game, with a feminine voice "Like I'm just dying to meet Mr Right! Now, bachelor nr. 1..."

Wayne looks up, scared. He's a man that can only remember things for a few seconds: "Where am I? How did I get here?"

Greg smiles, and asks away: "Bachelor nr. 1, if...?"

"I'm a bachelor?" Wayne interrupted, "When did that happen?"

Greg smiles away, but decided to ignore him, and turns to the next bachelor: "Bachelor nr. 2!"

Colin, who's a robot with lot's of malfunctions, robotically raised his head, and let if fall backwards, after which he said: "Present!"

"How would you describe a romantic date with me?" Greg asked.

"Most romantic... date... February 14th..." Colin replied.

"Right..." Greg addressed himself to the next, "Bachelor nr. 3!"

Ryan, who's a woman trying to act like a man, looked at him with an old man's expression, but with the eyes of a female magazine-cover model.

"How do you feel about singing karaoke?" ? asked.

"Well..." Ryan made his voice sound low, and yet too high for a man, "If holding a mic wouldn't break my nails, I'd be glad... I mean! If it won't make me bite my nails, I'm all yours!"

Greg wasn't too sure about smiling at this. He carried on either way, back to: "Bachelor nr. 1!"

"Hey! Who are you!" Wayne was obviously scared, and turned to Colin, "Help me! Please!"

"Unrecognised command!" Colin replied, "System overload! Will self-destruct!"

Ryan screamed like a girl as a reply, but quickly repented: "I mean..." and tried to sound a man screaming.

Drew presses the buzzer to stop the game: "Okay! Any idea who you're dealing with?"

Greg thought for a moment: "Bachelor nr. 1, I think is... a man without his memories?"

"A man who can remember for only a few minutes. Close enough." Drew said.

"Bachelor nr. 2, I think..." he paused, "Is a robot!"

"And a malfunctioning one at that!" Drew added, "And Ryan?"

Again he had to choose his words carefully: "I think... a cross-dresser?"

"Meh, close enough, a woman who tried to be a man." Drew corrected him, "That's it for this game, thank you very much."

With a loud cheering from the audience, the four returned to their seats.

"That's ten thousand points for me, as they could never pay me enough for this job." Drew sighed, at which Ryan made a mocking laugh.

Ignoring him, Drew carried on: "Sooooo... let's go to our next game: "Two Line Vocabulary". This is for Wayne, Colin and Ryan. In this game, Colin can say whatever he wants, while Wayne and Ryan can only say two lines each, that's all they're allowed to say. Wayne, your lines are "What does that do" and ""Should I use my fists". Ryan, your lines are "Are you enjoying this" and "Oh my god, that's enormous". The scene is: Wayne and Ryan are engineers, who are testing the most poweful cannon ever made, when Colin is called in for a problem. You can start whenever you're ready. Take it away...

"What does that do?" Wayne said, as he pressed a button.

As a reaction to what the button did, Ryan exclaimed: "Oh my god! That's enormous!"

Colin arrived at the scene: "Sorry I'm late. I was told there's a prob... Oh my...! You just blew a hole in the wall!"

"Are you enjoying this?" Ryan asked, surprised about how Colin reacted.

"Not particularly!" Colin whined.

"Should I use my fists?" Wayne asked Ryan.

"How dare you?!" Colin asked him, "I'm a woman."

After the audience has quieted down, Drew remarked: "You said it yourself this time."

"What does that do?" Ryan asked, pointing to Drew.

"Nothing, it's just there for the show." Colin answered.

"Are you enjoying this?" Ryan asked him, laughingly.

"Oh, come on!" Colin tried to get everyone back to the main issue, "We've got a hole in the wall! What will we do if an enemy gets in?"

"Should I use my fists?" Wayne asked Colin, as he raised his fists.

"Yes!" Colin replied, "Then you should use your fists."

"Oh my god, that's enormous." Ryan admired Wayne's fists.

"You love saying that, don't you?!" Colin remarked, "Can you also say that about the small things?"

"Are you enjoying this?" Ryan sounded angry as he asked this.

"Not in the least!" Colin replied, about ready to lose it.

"What does that do?" Wayne asked, as he was about to press another button.

"Don't!" Colin warned him, "That'll blow up the whole..."

They all mimed to be blown up, after which Ryan said: "Are you enjoying this?!"

Drew buzzes them to stop the game: "All right, that should do it."

The three of them return to their seats.

"A thousand points to everyone" Drew said, "Two thousand points for Mrs. Colin, and one hundred points for Ryan for still being able to say "are you enjoying this" while being blown up."

"Don't look at me." Ryan replied, "Colin over here can change his gender."

"It's so hard to be special." Colin said.

Drew then decided to carry on: "Ah, here's a game you can play with your kids at home: "Questions only". This is for all four of you. In this game the contestants can speak only in questions, and no answers. If they can't come up with another question, or if they answer a question, they'll be replaced by another actor. We'll start with Wayne and Ryan. The scene is you're stuck inside a building, when suddenly the entire city is being bombed.

Wayne: "Do you feel that?"

Ryan: "You too?"

Wayne: "What can we do?"

Ryan couldn't think of the next question, so Greg replaced him.

Wayne: "What is going on?"

Greg: "How should I know?"

Wayne: "Aren't you the expert?"

Greg: "Do I look that way to you?"

Wayne couldn't think of another question, so Colin replaced him.

Colin: "You've got your bus ready for us to evacuate?"

Greg: "Since when do I have one?"

Colin: "You don't?"

Greg: "Should I?"

Colin: "Why are you here then?"

Greg: "I don't know."

That wasn't a question, so Ryan replaced him.

Colin: "Did the upper floors just blow up?"

Ryan: "Did it feel that way to you?"

Colin: "Can't you feel anything?"

Ryan: "Do you ever answer a question?"

Colin: "Me?"

Ryan couldn't think of the next question, so Greg filled in.

Greg: "Can I borrow your fire-extinguisher?"

Colin: "Sure. Oh no...!"

"All right!" Drew buzzed them out, "We'll be right back with more "Whose Line Is It Anyway", right after this! Don't go... AWAY!!"

The show is being interrupted for commercial breaks. Meanwhile, Drew is being notified by one of the camera-men about something: "Mr. Carey, we just heard there may be Heartless out here."

"So?" Drew wondered, "Let the security guys handle it, that's what they're being paid for. Anyway, aren't we supposed to start again?"

The camera-man muttered: "Yes, but..."

"Then let's get to it."

"All right!" Drew exclaimed as the show carried on, "Welcome back to "Whose Line Is It Anyway", I'm your host Drew Carey, or as President Bush would call me, "Target for practise."

"I'm sure he'll never miss." Ryan said in reply to that.

Drew ignored him: "Next game's... "Quick change"! This is for Ryan, Colin and Wayne."

The three of them get up and move forward.

Drew explained what the game is about: "Colin and Ryan will act out a scene, and every time Wayne says 'change', the performers must change the last thing they said. The scene is: Colin's an agent who has to find an object stolen from Ryan's museum of ancient relics. You can start whenever you're ready.

Colin started to interrogate: "What exactly is stolen?"

Ryan replied: "An Atlantian sphere."

Wayne: "Change!"

Ryan: "The Mona Lisa!"

Colin found this very interesting: "Really? Isn't that in a museum in Paris?"

Ryan corrected him: "No!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Ryan: "Yes!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Ryan: "I don't know!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Ryan: "We are in Paris!"

Colin tried to correct this mistake of his: "Oh my, my memory is failing on me!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Colin: "I'm getting to old to remember!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Colin: "I must have taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque!"

Ryan didn't know what to think of this officer: "Paris in France, not Paris in Texas!"

"See?" Colin demonstrated, "So... how did the culprit get out with the Mona Lisa?"

Ryan lifted his shoulders, then said: "He must've gotten it through the air-shafts."

Wayne: "Change!"

Ryan: "He threw it out the window!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Ryan: "He ate it up!"

"He did?" Colin had never heard such a weird tale, "Must be hard to digest."

Wayne: "Change!"

Colin: "Must've been hard to swallow!"

Wayne: "Change!"

Colin: "Raw, or cooked?"

Wayne: "Change!"

Colin got angry, but instead of saying anything, he dropped himself to the floor.

"Oh now..." Ryan said, "You just got a heart-attack."

Ryan waited, expecting Colin to say anything, but nothing came. Curious, Ryan tried to pick up Colin, but that's when his body disappeared, showing some kind of black creature crawling from underneath the floor. Ryan yelled at the sight of it, as did everyone else in the studio. Other than the one creature, another one that looked just like it appeared. Everyone tried to make a run for it, not caring if they destroyed the studios in the process.

"Careful everyone." Drew shouted to them.

"Yeah, you may hurt yourselves doing that." Wayne shouted after him.

"Hurt themselves?" Drew questioned, "What about the set? Do you have any idea how much they cost?"

After that, Drew shouted some more things, at which Wayne knocked him out cold. He tried to carry him out of the studio, but he was too heavy. Ryan and Greg helped, but that only slowed all three of them down, so the two Heartless were able to consume them. And these five Heartless alone, soon started to invade the entire studio.

**THE END**


	12. Critic's Column

Disclaimer: based on the character created by Doug Walker.

* * *

**Critic's Column**

**Hi! I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it, so YOU don't have to. Anyone knows Final Fantasy? Coz I sure love it. Okay, so they have complicated storylines, and every character has their own stories,... there are like a hundred stories told in every game, but it has monsters, witches, swords,... in short, the games have everything that anyone likes. Even those who aren't really into fantasy love these games. One thing that kinda bugs me is continuity. There are so many games, but not one of them is a sequel to the other. But that's okay, this way no one can say they're telling the same story over and over again, as is always the case with sequels. But at least, there are these flying fireballs, these monsters that the good guys summon, there's always a guy named Sid in these games,... though never sequels, there's more than just the title that links these games together. With the release of ten games, at the time, and even an anime series, a movie was inevitable.**

Quoting Neil from "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within": "You've got a talent for understatement."

**You know, I'd rather not review this movie, but since somebody called a "nobody" threatened to send a Heartless to me if I don't, I'm kinda stuck here.**

Quoting Aki from the movie: "It's all right."

**Well then, with that assuring thought, here goes:**

**So with the games so successful, and with the creators using animated characters rather than real actors, so to avoid bad acting, and it's called Final Fantasy, this movie is bound to be good. Right? I remember there having been a controversy about the fact that we won't need any real people anymore to make these films. But if they keep making such films like they make this movie, I don't see much of a problem there.**

Quoting a soldier in the same movie: "Duly noted."

**Since, like I've said before, every game fits in a continuity of it's own, this movie too fits in it's own continuity. Now, the games are so great, you wouldn't care about that, so you shouldn't care about it if it happens in the movie as well. So, anyway, it starts with a woman named Aki, who has this dream in which she's on some planet or other. A planet on which people can stand on water, so it seems. Or maybe... I don't know. Somebody knows what that's about? Then it turns out there planet has been raided by some aliens, whose plans were to, you guessed it, taking over the world.**

Quoting the villain from "Street Fighter": "Of course!"

**Then she lands somewhere in a place called "Old New York". Old New York? If it's old, why not just call it "Old York", or would that be too easy?**

Quoting Neil from "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within": "Why are you always busting my chops?"

**Suddenly, it turns out that the aliens are ghosts, or phantoms as they keep calling them. Now let's look for some of those fireball monsters, or those caterpillars, or anything that looks like those Final Fantasy monsters we've come to love so much.**

The Critic searches all through the movie, seeing monsters of many different shapes and sizes, but finds not one that even remotely resembles any of these monsters.

**What the fuck!? Not one of them is in there? What kind of Final Fantasy movie is this?!**

**So anyway, with these things being ghosts that can walk through walls, they enter some kind of a dome-shaped city, or a Barrier City, in this case it's numbered 42, where they're protected from them. Weird, when the hell did they have the chance or the time to built at least 42 of these cities? But if you thought that's weird, it suddenly turns out these ghosts can infect you with some kind of a virus.**

Quoting Jane from the same movie: "That's a spooky thought"

**A virus from ghosts? You can get sick from a ghost? It is later revealed in the movie that these ghosts can suck the life out of you, litterally, so why do they need to make us sick? This just doesn't make any sense! I gotta go see a doctor about this.**

Quoting Sid: "That won't be necessary. I'll take responcibility."

**You'd better be. And while you're at it, maybe you could explain this to me as well: You earlier destroyed your diary that stated our planet has a spirit, but when he comes before the council:**

"It will injure the Earth."

"Injure the Earth?" a council member questions, "You mean the spirit of the Earth?"

"Yes." Sid replies.

**So you destroyed your diary, only to tell them the very content of it? Are you nuts?**

Quoting Aki: "You'll be back to normal in no time."

**Then there's a moment when the heroes are flying through all these phantom things, and two soldiers aboard have their guns pointed at the them, when suddenly Aki wakes up, they shoot her, and then the heroes fight back. And they didn't fight them before they shot her, because...? But you know, with the pilot managing to only just avoid it's small ship to pass all through these phantoms, it's close to impossible that these phantoms would hit the ship, but only just catch the bad guys.**

The particular scene did end with a phantom catching one of the bad guys. Seeing this, the Critic tried his best not to go nuts.

**And if you thought this couldn't get any worse, how's this: so Aki keeps having these dreams, most of the time in the movie. All that's missing here is that the dreams actually mean anything in the movie.**

Quoting Aki: "I know what it means now."

The Critic smacked himself in the face, to keep himself from going nuts, then continued.

**So then she explains to us how those aliens really came here.**

"That meteor was a part of their planet. And they were transported here."

"How can they have survived outer space on a piece of rock?" Neil questioned.

"They didn't." Aki replied.

**They're ghosts? Wow, with these things going through walls, almost always invisible, transparent and called phantoms, and nobody would have guessed they are ghosts? What the fuck?! This is just fucking messed up! What the hell were they thinking? This is the lamest twist... it's not even a twist at all! This movie is just some lame attempt on making a CGI feature, but to make sure it pays up, they just call it Final Fantasy, while it has nothing AT ALL to do with Final Fantasy.**

Quoting Gray: "You should have told me."

**Hell! It would take an emotionless type of person to even like this movie.**

"I like it." a voice from just outside the Critic's viewpoint stated.

The Critic turns to look at who spoke. It was the same so-called "nobody" who asked him to review the movie.

Quoting Neil: "This is all beginning to make a creepy kind of sense."

**Oh, hi Mr. Nobody. What's wrong? I reviewed the movie, like you asked?**

"Yes." the nobody replied, "But you reviewed it as if it were a bad movie."

**Really? You really think so? I haven't begun about that Neil's one-liners just yet.**

Quoting a voice from the PA: "Proceed to the nearest evacuation facility. Proceed to the nearest evacuation facility."

Followed by Neil, saying: "I think we should proceed to the nearest evacuation facility."

"Enough!" the nobody said, scaring the Critic out of his wits.

**I don't suppose there's a "Somebody" out there to help me with this "Nobody"?**

**THE END**


	13. Anonymous's Room

Disclaimer: "What have you done" is written and performed by Within Temptation, along with Keith Caputo. Characters used in this chapter are mine.

* * *

**Anonymous's room**

A guy, at his early twenties, returned to his room. Upon entering, he puts a CD in his CD-player, selects "What have you done", by Within Temptation, after which he laid down on his bed, listening to the song.

"Would you mind if I hurt you? Understand that I need to

Wish that I had other choices, Than to harm the one I love

What have you done now!"

A song which fitted in his current situation in many ways. As he heard the song, he remembered what happened to him before he returned home.

"I know I better stop trying

You know that there's no denying

I won't show mercy on you now"

His girlfriend had called him up to talk to him. Not suspecting anything at all, he went to the agreed spot.

"I know, I should stop believing, I know, there's no retrieving

It's over now, what have you done?

His head up in the air, he had made it to wherever they agreed to meet. But what he saw then...

"What have you done now!

I, I've been waiting for someone like you

But now you're slipping away (What have you done now!)"

He saw the girl, whom he thought to be his girlfriend, with another guy, who had his hands all over her, somehow causing her to laugh out loud.

"Why, why does fate make us suffer?

There's a curse between us, between me and you"

Making her laugh, like she never did with him. Him, wrapping his arms around her, and her not even trying to stop him. If she were to tell him that this guy is really her brother, only a blind man who hasn't seen this, or a deaf man who didn't hear them, would believe her, but he knew better than this.

"What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done now!"

Not knowing what else to do, he picked up a rock, which he threw at the girl and her new boyfriend.

"What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done now!"

Not caring about how they might or might not react to his actions, the anonymous guy ran away.

"Would you mind if I killed you?

Would you mind if I tried to? Cause you have..."

Back in his own room, our guy could not believe this was happening.

"Turned into my worst enemy

You carry hate that I don't feel

It's over now

What have you done?"

The worst way to break up with someone is not to just tell them you found someone else, but to immediately show they're with someone else.

"What have you done now!

I, I've been waiting for someone like you

But now you're slipping away (What have you done now!)"

A tear started to stream down his face, for which he turned to lay on his side.

"Why, why does fate make us suffer?

There's a curse between us, between me and you"

Over the music, he could swear he heard something. Thinking it's probably nothing, he gave it no further thought.

"What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done now!

What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done! What have you done!

What have you done now!"

When the more silent part of the song started, he was sure he heard something unnatural. He got up to look around. He noticed a lot of shadows in his room, except that there aren't that many lights to cast so many shadows, or enough objects to cause them. What is this?

"What have you done? (What have you done?) (What have you done?) (What have you done?) "

He couldn't be too sure, but for some reason, they appeared to be moving on their own.

"(What have you done?) (What have you done?) (What have you done?)"

In fact, it looked as though they tried to break free from their shadowy positions, until some bug-like creatures appeared. Once he saw the creatures, he was afraid of them at first, but then decided why he should be. Everything he loved in his life just showed how much it loved him in return. The one reason that gave his life meaning, it's gone. The creatures jumped on him, and he didn't stop them. Soon all became black.

"I will not fall"

Suddenly, light returned to him.

"Won't let it go"

He looked at his hands, which suddenly wore black gloves, the same goes for the sleeves.

"We will be free when it ends"

Once he got a good look at himself in the nearest mirror he could find, he saw he wore a long black coat, along with black clothes underneath it, ditto boots. His face had turned pale, crying on the right side but laughing at the left.

"I, I've been waiting for someone like you

But now you're slipping away (What have you done now!)"

For reasons unknown to him, he felt a lot stronger, a lot more agile than he ever had before.

"Why, why does fate make us suffer?"

With this new found power of his, he knew exactly what to do.

"There's a curse between us, between me and you"

He went to visit his ex, along with her boyfriend. The first thing she did upon seeing him was complaining about the rock.

"I've been waiting for someone like you

But now you're slipping away (What have you done now!)"

Then she laughed at the sight of him. He however grabbed her face and threw her away.

"Why, why does fate make us suffer?

There's a curse between us, between me and you"

She fell on top of her boyfriend. Both of them had suddenly turned scared of him. They wanted to call the police, but both of their cell-phones got kicked out of their hands, after which the anonymous guy raised his sword and got closer to the two.

**THE END**


	14. Magitopia

Disclaimer: "Magiranger" is owned Toei Company. The character "Sutokeru/Abyszard", however, is mine

* * *

**Magitopia**

All over town, a large group of monsters have started to appear. These monsters could only be described as black things, which either looked like clowns, mummies, gargoyles, or even less recognizable ones, such as big flying balls, or some things that looked a lot like sprites, which came in red, blue, yellow and green. Whatever these things were, they were nothing to scare a certain band of magicians, who called themselves the Magirangers. Or so they thought...

Their strength was enough to take them down, but every one they destroyed, more came. There appeared to be no end to them.

At some point, the red guy in the group, who called himself Magired, had enough of it: "These things just keep on coming!"

"Where do they all come from?" the yellow guy, Magiyellow, wondered.

"What are they exactly?" the blue girl, Magiblue, questioned.

"They look kind of sad." the pink girl, Magipink, remarked.

"Our own magic is not enough to take them all." the green guy, Magigreen, realized.

"Maybe you can take them all out with your legend powers." the guy in golden armor, Magishine, suggested.

"That will have to wait!" a voice, not to far away from them, exclaimed.

The six of them turned to look. Not that they needed, as they all recognized the voice.

"Tou-san?" the five, who are named after their colors, were surprised to see their father.

That father, who wore a red armor, which looked heavier than the aforementioned golden one, rode a whote horse and went by the name Wolzard Fire, called at them: "Kaa-san, Sungel and I can take care of them. Right now, I need you to go to Magitopia!"

"Us?" Magired questioned.

Magigreen wanted to hear an explanation: "I thought it was..."

"That's not important right now." Wolzard interrupted, "I haven't heard anything from up there in a while. And with these creatures suddenly coming out of nowhere, this can't be just a coincidence. That's why I want you kids to figure this out."

He got off the horse, which he then directed to join his children.

"Wow..." Magired sounded excited, "You mean we can..."

"No time to explain!" Wolzard interrupted, "Go now!"

As told, Magired mounted the horse, while his brothers and sisters mounted the brooms they summoned to follow him. With the horse, a portal was opened that lead them directly to Magitopia.

Once they arrived, they were surprised to find Magitopia devastated. It looked like a hurricane had come and destroyed it. But all of the five knew that that was not possible. After they undid their protective suits, they searched for survivors. After a long search, they didn't find any. But then, they didn't find any bodies either. What kind of enemy creates such devastation, but doesn't leave some kind of body behind?

After a long search, the five did find someone. It was the heavenly saint, though named Lunagel, the five always referred to her as Rin. As soon as they found her, they wanted to be sure she was still alive.

"Rin!" the red guy, now called Kai, shouted at her.

At the sound of his voice, Rin moaned. The five got closer and helped her sit up.

"You... how did you...?" she asked them.

"Never mind that." the green guy, now called Makito, interrupted, "What happened here?"

"They came out of nowhere." Rin replied, "We could... only just... protect Magiel, help her leave safely."

"What came out of nowhere?" Makito kept asking.

"... Heartless..." Rin managed to say.

"Heartless?" all five repeated in unison.

"You mean those black things out there?" the pink girl, Houka, asked.

"What are they exactly?" the yellow guy, Tsubasa, asked.

"Man... mani...festations of..." Rin tried to explain, "... of people's dark hearts."

"Dark hearts?" Tsubasa questioned.

"No wonder they seemed so sad." Houka realized.

"You're right." the blue girl, Urara, agreed, "They appear to show not much of any emotion."

"How come are there so many of them?" Kai asked.

"There's... darkness... in every heart." Rin explained, "So..."

"So extract that darkness away from everyone, and you've got these things!" Urara realized.

"Extracting darkness, huh? That doesn't sound too bad." Kai cheered.

Makito smacked him on his head: "Idiot! Look at what it did to Magitopia!"

"The people may be extracted of their darkness." Tsubasa thought out loud, "But that doesn't mean the darkness is gone."

"They just take a form of their own and wreak havoc!" Urara figured.

"And are now surrounding us!" Houka just sounded in a panic.

That's when everyone else realized it as well. While they were talking, an entire group of Heartless had just surrounded them.

"Let's henshin!" Kai ordered everyone.

"That won't be necessary!" another voice called at them.

It was a younger voice, somewhat deep, perhaps even dark of nature. It was, however, a voice which the Magirangers knew only too well. They didn't need to see the speaker come from behind a nearby pillar, to know that it belonged to him.

"Sutokeru!" Makito cried, "You behind this!?"

"Me?" the speaker, Sutokeru, questioned, "Why would I want to do that?"

"Well you controlling these things is a dead give-away." Makito reasoned.

"These Heartless merely side with whom they think to be the strongest." Sutokeru replied.

"Of course." Tsubasa realized, "Someone specializing in dark magic, of course he'd figure out how to control them."

"You think that Lord..." Houka asked him, but got interrupted.

"I'm pretty sure not." Sutokeru replied, "His number one purpose right now is to make me suffer."

Urara understood this: "He wouldn't send out anything that he could easily deal with, would he?"

"Wait!" Tsubasa interrupted, "They side with the strongest, you say?"

"Yes?" Sutokeru questioned.

"That must mean they have some kind of a leader to follow." Tsubasa figured.

"Kill the leader, and the others will fall like a house of cards." Makito said.

"Alright!" Kai cheered, "Let's go find that leader then."

"Lead the way, red guy." Sutokeru said.

"What?" Kai didn't understand.

"If you have any idea where to find this leader, lead the way." Sutokeru explained, using his usual arrogant tone.

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but he's right." Makito said, indignant, "Where do we start?"

That's when something caused the floor underneath them to shake, until suddenly something came from under the rubble of a Magitopian temple. It looked like a giant black man, with snake-like hair, and something heart-shaped cut out of it's chest.

"That be the leader, I presume?" Sutokeru said, after which he took out his so-called Magi-phone and used it to change into his black suit, to become Abyszard.

"Rin, you better get to our house." Makito suggested.

"Yeah, we'll stay and handle that thing!" Kai agreed.

Rin nodded and got away. That's when the five raised their own Magi-phones to change back into their own suits.

"Mahou Henshin!" the five shouted in unison.

Before anything else happened, the giant Heartless had smacked them away.

At the sight of this, Abyszard sighed: "They always take their time to henshin. Guess I'd better buy them some."

He pointed his wand to the floor, which cracked open, to reveal a huge zeppelin. Abyszard got aboard it, and changed it into it's humanoid form.

Particularly Kai wasn't pleased to see this: "He's gonna take him on all by himself? That..."

"Kai, watch out!" his siblings shouted at him.

Kai could only just duck down to dodge an attack from the Heartless. Be didn't seem to care about it though. He chanted the magic words, which changed him back into Magired.

"Nii-san, nee-san!" Magired addressed himself to his siblings, "You better take care of the remaining ones. I'll go get that big one myself!"

That's when the white horse from before returned, which Magired mounted again. Along with it, they changed into giants, then combined into what Kai had come to call Saint Kaiser.

Meanwhile, while fighting the enemy, Abyszard had noticed that the other four Magirangers have begun fighting the Heartless he had under his control. But that wasn't what bothered him, as he noticed something peculiar during those fights. Upon noticing it, the giant Heartless had an open window to take him down, and didn't hesitate to do so. With Abyszard down, Saint Kaiser saw his chance.

"Hah! Not so cocky now, are you?!" he shouted, after which he needed only one hit from his strongest weapon to defeat the Heartless. Once that one was gone too, Abyszard noticed the same thing occurring here. It was as if something shaped like a heart left the destroyed bodies. But this one appeared different to the others somehow. This one floated at random at first, but then decided to go into a more specific direction. It's like it was returning somewhere.

That heart-shaped thing returned to the hand of a hooded figure. He gazed upon it, after which he said: "My dark side is destroyed, but this clearly won't be."

There was something peculiar about his voice. It sounded like it laughed and cried all at the same time. This hooded figure turned to some other creatures behind him. In many ways, these things resembled the Heartless, accept that they were white, bore different marks, plus they didn't seem to be acting all at random, almost as if they've got some form of dicipline. The hooded figure tossed the heart to three of these guys.

"I'll let you guys take care of this." the figure said, after which he opened a portal of his own and disappeared in it, along with the ones that were left besides the three.

These other things had started fighting over this heart-shaped thing. It appeared to hold some kind of importance to them. Little did they know, Since one of the Magirangers had noticed it flying there, all six of them had arrived at the spot.

"They keep fighting over that heart-thing." Magiyellow said.

"How important must that thing be?" Magipink asked.  
"Could they use it to bring that giant back?" Magiblue wondered.

"All the more reason to destroy it." Magired said.

"So what are waiting for?" Magigreen decided.

Together, they attacked these guys. Abyszard, who saw their enthusiasm, decided to not do anything, but still wondered if doing this is the right thing to do. There was something about all this that didn't make much sense to him.

**THE END**


	15. Bailey Downs

Disclaimer: "Ginger Snaps" is owned by Lions GateFilms.

Note: this one-shot is directly linked to my own "Ginger Snaps" stories.

* * *

**Bailey Downs**

A girl lay buried under the mud, believed to be dead. Though her throat was slit, apparently the cut wasn't deep enough to kill her. The realization that she had no air at all is what woke her up. Weak as she may be, or rather should be from the loss of blood, she managed to crawl her way out of the mud. Once she was out, she took one deep breath, without caring how much her throat hurt doing as such, or even caring about the water that flew into her mouth, from the rain that was pouring down. The rain also cleaned much of the mud that dirtied her. She was young, had long black hair, was tomboyishly dressed in jeans and a black sweatshirt. Once she was out, she heard someone else nearby. She hoped it was the one that left her here, but she somehow know that wasn't the case. When she turned to look, she saw a guy, who merely smiled, apparently failing to notice her need for medical need. Instead of helping her, he decided to unzip his pants, at which the girl snarled. But this didn't seem to stop the guy at all, in fact it caused him to draw out his knife. The girl managed to kick the knife out of his hands, then in his nuts. The guy mumbled something, but the girl had a hard time understanding this, either because her ears were still full of mud, or because her brain was to weak to process what he was saying. In any case, she raised her hand, which had very sharp nails. The guy appeared unimpressed, until the girl started slashing at him with it. He dodged every one of her attacks, but that was because she didn't want to kill him like this. The guy appeared confident that he'd win this fight, and in that opening the girl used one sharp nail to cut the guy's throat. The guy slowly bled to death, or at least seemed to weaken. Once he couldn't stand on his own two feet anymore, the girl burried him in the mud where she lay herself before. Just before covering his head, she decided to take off her necklace, which carried a bird's skull, and put it around the guy's neck. Given the shallowness of the grave, she hoped that worms had eaten out enough of his flesh, rendering the body beyond recognition, and with the mud dirtying the body, the clothes too would look differently, so people would easily mistake it for the clothes she's wearing when she was buried. Also, the necklace would be the only way for her beloved to mistake this guy for her. With this, she hoped she could bury her own past and start a new life.

With some self-aid, she managed to take care of her slid throat. It surprised her that she could survive something like this herself, but not so much when considering she did this to herself, which means she hesitated to a point, plus there's something else about her that makes her physically too strong to be killed by this. Once she was done taking care of her wound, she tried to speak, but failed. Though not deep enough cut, it was still enough to damage her vocal cords. When she realized this wouldn't work, she gave up trying. All she wanted more than anything at the moment, was to do just the one last thing, with which she believed she would permanently bury her past. To do that, she had to return to the town she was born and raised: Bailey Downs.

Once she arrived in town, she wasn't at all surprised to see that nobody recognized her. She didn't care either, as she never really felt connected to these people. Without giving anyone even one glance, she went to the place she once called home. When she arrived, she saw how neglected it has been in the past time, as the grass wasn't cut, nor were any of the broken windows repaired. It was like nobody lives there anymore. She went inside the house, where she immediately felt a strange air. She could quite place what it was, but it was like there was something alive in the house. As she got deeper inside, she felt it much stronger. At a point, she thought she was so close she should see it, but she didn't. She should be right on top of it, she thought. That's when it hit her: it must be in the basement, where her own bedroom used to be. She went down, where she met a man. He was dressed in dark clothes and a long dark coat, wore what looked like white make-up, along with some black that made his face appear to be crying on one side and laughing on the other.

"Hello, Brigitte." he said, using a voice that sounded both happy and sad, "I've been waiting for you."

The girl, Brigitte, not being able to talk, looked at him questioningly.

"Surprised I know your name?" that man wondered, "It's not so difficult. There's enough left in this house to find that out."

Brigitte still didn't understand, so the man continued: "But what would possibly bring me here, you wonder? You should ask them."

He pointed to a corner of the room, where suddenly black creatures started to appear. Brigitte took a step back, after which the man explained: "These Heartless here can sense the darkness in people's hearts, and they sensed yours."

This appeared to frighten Brigitte, which got the man to continue: "And from what I gather, this seemed to be the place where your darkness it at it's strongest. Which is good for me."

He then motioned to the black things, the Heartless, to attack her. Brigitte, however, appeared strong enough to fend them off. Once they were defeated, the man nodded: "Looks like you're too strong for them. I suppose I should help them out a little."

That's when he split himself into two people, one crying and one laughing. Both of them attacked Brigitte, and appeared to be winning. They kept beating her up, until she was weakened enough for both of them to hold her up against the wall.

"There now." the laughing man said.

"Was that really... needed?" the crying man asked.

"I would have been easier if you just cooperated." the laughing man remarked.

The crying man said nothing but nodded agreeing.

Brigitte looked from the one to the other, then at more of these Heartless appearing. Whatever it was that they did, it caused something to snap inside of her, which also seemed to have sped up the healing-process of her throat, as she could suddenly exclaim: "Just... fuck... off!"

Like a wild animal, she attacked both of these men, causing them to become one man again. That's when she grew into a much larger creature, which was able to take down all of the other Heartless in one sweep. This scared the man, so he made a portal appear that helped him disappear from the scene. Once that man was gone, Brigitte changed back into her more human form.

After this, she searched the house for some gasoline, which she poured all over. Once she was done with that, she stepped out of the house, lit a match and set the gasoline on fire, thereby torching the whole house. With this, she hoped she now has her past buried forever.

**THE END**


	16. Haddonfield

Disclaimer: based on characters created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill

---------------------------------------------

**Haddonfield**

In this small town, celebrating Halloween wasn't much different from any other town, or world for that matter. With all the kids here being eager to be something they're not, that something being a darker version of themselves, who's to think that Heartless would not be attracted to the darkness within the hearts of the children? In doing so, not only do many children disappear, it also causes the town's adults to go completely haywire. It didn't take long until a group of them gather at a certain house, where they believe that the one making their children disappear is residing. They throw rocks at the house, thinking that it would help him to leave. What happened instead, was something not one of them could think that would happen. They hoped to corner the alleged perpetrator, but instead they got surrounded by the actual perpetrators, who didn't have much of a problem with consuming the people's darkness: the Heartless.

From the perspective of the one inside the house, who would just seem like the shape of a man seen from outside, this was something weird, yet interesting. That Shape then noticed how these Heartless were about to enter the house. The Shape backed away from the window and hid into the shadows. He hoped he could sneak up on some of them and destroy them. Unfortunately, he didn't know that these things were shadows themselves, so when he hid in the shadows, he actually hid himself among them. When he got attacked by one of them, he was surprised, but it didn't stop him. He raised his knife, which he used to cut off one of the Heartless's heads. That same weapon, he used it to cut the other ones apart, like a knife through butter. Once he managed to kill at least half of them, the rest backed away, making room for a man, who clapped his hands as he walked into the living room, where the Shape was fighting the Heartless.

"Just as I'd expect from a dark man, such as yourself." he said, "You must be that guy that everyone hates. Funny, as I was told you're dead, and yet here you are. But then, those who were trying to attack you knew you were dead too. Strage how illogical these people can be, don't you think?"

The Shape started to close in on that man, who didn't appear to feel threatened at all. As the Shape swung his knife, the man just split himself into two, and thereby causing the Shape to miss.

"They say your name's Michael." the man then said, or rather one of them said, sounding as though he was laughing.

"And despite your darkness, you have a very strong heart." the other one said, sounding as though he was crying.

The Shape, or Michael, didn't listen. He kept swaying his knife, hoping he'd shut this man up. But the men kept dodging every attack, until they finally decided to attack him themselves.

"Not to worry." the laughing man said, "It'll be over before you know it."

The fight kept on for a while. Somewhere along the way, Michael started to feel some kind of fatigue. He knew that if he wanted this fight to end, it had to end very soon. At some point, he decided to drop his knife, grabbed the two men and bumped their heads together. He didn't expect that in doing so, the two men would become one again, but that didn't matter to him. All Michael had to do then was pick up his knife again and kill this man. The man, however decided he's had enough.

"Looks like I should make myself a little stronger before I can turn such strong people into Heartless, or nobody's for that matter."

He then opened something, that can only be identified as a portal. All the aquired Heartless went into it, and the man followed. Michael didn't know what this was about, but he was glad that he's now left alone.

**THE END**


	17. That Guy's Corner

Disclaimer: based on the character created by Darien Walker

------------------------------------

**That Guy's Corner**

That Guy With The Glasses was reading his book (or has he once claimed, pretending to read his book), having his pipe in his mouth (although he's not smoking), when he suddenly noticed there were people in his house.

"Oh! _Goeiedag_!" he greeted, as he closed his book, "Didn't hear you come in. Greetings and welcome to 'Ask That Guy With The Glasses'."

**If a Nobody is someone without a heart, because the Heartless took it, and that heart would become a Heartless, wouldn't that mean that the Heartless aren't so... well, "heartless"?**

"That's a very good question." That Guy replied, "The answer is: No, it means that the heartless are just dumb. They call themselves heartless because they want to express how bad they are, and decide to use a lame name such as 'Heartless'."

Noticing how much the people do (or don't) believe him, That Guy added a: "Yes."

**How does a Heartless take out your heart? Does it rip your chest open like a wild animal, or does he surgically remove it?**

"That would depend." That Guy answered, "Some, like those clown-looking ones, or those witches and wizards, they remove it surgically, but all the other ones rip it out like animals."

Seeing as to how much people didn't believe him, he explained much further: "They jump on you, scratch open your shirt and your chest. Then they take out all that's in their way to get to the heart. The stomach, the lungs,... you name it. After that, they eat up the heart, just to be sure they took it's dark essence as well, and after it's been digested, they shit out another Heartless.

**My mother is a very dark person. She loves nothing more but to make my life a living hell. Should I feed her to the Heartless?**

"Yes you should." That Guy replied, "The sooner you do that, the better. And when you do that, you should capture her Heartless, tie her down, and give her the spanking she deserves, have her eat your shit and force her to go to school."

Before the next question, That Guy wondered: "Is it me, or are all these questions Heartless-related?"

**What happened to the Nostalgia Critic? Last time we saw him, he was attacked by a Nobody, because he gave a bad review. Is the Critic okay?**

"Yes. He's just fine." That Guy assured everyone, "Another Nobody showed up, who appeared to be laughing and crying all at the same time, and he killed that Nobody. As for the Critic, he's staying at a hospital, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, after having seen two nobodies at the same time."

**How is it possible that your still here? Don't you live in the same world as the Nostalgia Critic? Who lives in the same world as the Angry Video Game Nerd? And if so, wasn't your world just taken over by the Heartless?**

That Guy, for a moment didn't know what to say, but when he did, he said: "My world's gone? Then what happened to me? How can I still be here? Did I arrive at Traverse Town and I don't even know it? Oh my god, there's something I don't know! What is this world coming to if there's something I don't know?! I need to see my shrink."

"This is That Guy With The Glasses." That Guy ended this, "Saying: There's no such thing as a stupid question... until YOU ask it."

He winks after having said that, before continue having his pipe in his mouth and looking inside his book.

**THE END**


	18. Little Miss's Room

Disclaimer: based on characters and situations owned by PBC Productions. The character "Nemo" is mine.

* * *

**Little Miss's Room**

The Little Miss Gamer, or "Z" as she preferred to be called, was in her room, sitting on her couch, her hands and feet bound together.

When the camera was pointing at her, she immediately said, with some panic on her face and in her voice: "This is... not what it looks like."

She looked beside the camera for one minute, then more panic-stricken back into the camera: "M... My friend Chad is... depressed... for reasons he... nor Becky want to say, but... but my new friend... Nemo, he... he decided to help me shoot my next video. And he thought..."

Something spooked her off-screen, so she rephrased what she was about to say: "I mean I asked him to... tie me here, because... only then I can be forced... to play this game."

She pointed at her TV-screen, which showed the opening screen for a game called "Kingdom Hearts", which she was planning to review.

"This game is just bad." Z said.

She quickly added: "To say the least!"

She pressed start, after which a selection-screen shows itself: "I... could never understand why it asks me a difficulty level. I mean, I want to play an easy game, right? Isn't that why you play games?"

Again, Z looks beside the camera, then back to the screen, still with the same panic on her face, then continued: "Then it starts to say something about dreams being real or not, and with this kid Sora..."

A shadow krept over Z, after which she quickly added: "Which nobody cares about!"

Once the shadow was gone, she continued: "You play this game because you want to see Disney characters, and here you get somebody you don't know. And even when you think you're about to see one, all you get is some sword, shield and wand that bears Mickey Mouse's symbol."

Something caused some form of fright on Z's face, after which she added: "And I wished... I wished I could... cut off... Mickey's head... with..."

Z was about to burst out in rage, but then a rope crept around her neck. It didn't tighten itself just yet, it was enough to convince Z to not do anything but saying how bad the game is.

"Not one Disney character appears within the first thirty minutes of the game." Z continued, after which she unconvincingly added: "What a rip-off!"

"And even when you've seen them, they don't tell you anything." Z said into the camera, "They turn back to that kid on some island, wherever it is. This game is just too mysterious and..."

Suddenly, Z had had enough. She sighed very loudly, in frustration, so it nearly sounded like she was growling: "Why do I have to say all that?! You may not like the game, but you have to force me to tell others they can't like it too?! I know it's mysterious, I know it doesn't only have Disney-characters in it, and I know it may be a little difficult. But come on! A mixture of Disney and Final Fantasy? How am I supposed to not like it?"

The man behind the camera, whom Z referred to as Nemo earlier, sounded as though he snickered, although his snicker had some hint of sadness.

"You're still holding back on me, Little Miss Gamer." Nemo said, whose voice sounded as though he was laughing and crying at the same time, "My Heartless are sensing a locked up darkness inside of you, but you're not letting it out."

If Z wasn't in a panic already, she suddenly started to: "You can't be serious."

Nemo knocked over the camera he used before, after which he said: "Perhaps, I've going in the wrong way with you."

That's when Nemo clicked his fingers, after which Heartless appeared. These Heartless quickly surrounded Z, but they didn't quite attack her. The moves they made, however, appeared threatening enough for her to panic. She tried to dodge their "attacks", but it was hard for her to do with her limbs restrained.

"Interesting." Nemo whispered, "I'm sensing the darkness's urge to surface."

That's when Z clearly had had enough. Somehow, she found the strength to tear the ropes apart that kept her bound, and in that same move, she knocked all the surrounding Heartless away. She then looked at Nemo, hissing: "I hoped I never had to do this... but you leave me no choice!"

She brings both of her fists to her right-hand side, to which she also bowed her head, as she tightened her fists.

"Er... what are you doing?" Nemo didn't understand what he was seeing.

That's when Z stretched out her left arm, still to her right, after which she allowed her left arm to swing back to her left, as she whispered: "Cha..."

Then she bent her left arm, as she stretches out her right arm, which remained at her right side, as she exclaimed: "... ange!"

A blinding flash came, and after a few seconds, something else stood where Z was standing only a short while ago. That something else had the appearance of a robot, though anyone could see that it looked more as though she was wearing a Halloween-suit.

"Cardboard boxes?" Nemo sounded surprised, "Your darkness comes in the form of cardboard boxes?"

All that Z, or that other thing, could give as a reply was: "Meep... Mop... Meep..."

"Meep... Mop?" Nemo was still surprised, but one shrug from him was enough to state that this didn't last much longer, "As long as I can use it."

He immediately ran to that other thing, which we can now call Meep Mop. But the latter needed to give Nemo only one punch, which threw him to the other side of the room, where he split into two, the Crying Nemo and Laughing Nemo.

"This isn't good." Crying Nemo whined, "She's too strong now. I can't win this."

"That's exactly what I thought with that other Nobody." Laughing Nemo grinned, "But I won back then, remember?"

"You think this is another walk in the park?" Crying Nemo wondered.

Meep Mop came closer as they spoke, so all Laughing Nemo could say: "Only one way to find out."

Both of them attacked Meep Mop. As one attacked it in front and the other behind, and both of them knew how and when the other would attack, there was no way for even Meep Mop to beat this adversary. It didn't take long until it was exhausted, so the Heartless could have their way with it. When they did, Meep Mop somehow disappeared, but Z for some reason was still left behind, lying unconscious on the floor.

"That's what was supposed to happen." Crying Nemo cried.

"Doesn't matter." Laughing Nemo assured him, "We got what we came for anyway."

The two formed one again, and together with all the remaining Heartless, he left Z's room.

**THE END**


	19. Primatech Paper

Disclaimer: "Heroes" is created by Tim Kring. The character "Oliver" is mine.

* * *

**Primatech Paper**

During the past few weeks, Oliver has been staying with a friend of his. An accidental friend, but a friend none the less. The friend in question, who was called Hana, was someone who's had a military training, and was hiding from people who may abuse her in some form or other. Whilst they were staying together, Hana felt that Oliver needed to undergo some kind of training, as he relied to much on some of his special abilities, and much less on his own physical strength. In the past weeks, Oliver seemed to have made some progress, but to Hana it was not enough. That's when she found out something about the very company she was hiding from.

With her ability to send and receive e-mails and text-messages, with her own head rather than with some external device, she noticed... something unusual, even to her or that company's standards. They kept talking about some project called "Heartless", which involved someone code-named Nemo. She wasn't sure of what it is they were talking about, but they kept babbling on about the subject having manifested itself exactly as Nemo wanted. Hana didn't know what this was about exactly, but she did know that this is something which she should check out. She did wonder whether she should or should not bring Oliver with her, as he's still inexperienced in the field. Still, he won't learn anything if she won't let him get on the field more often. She made her decision eventually, so she warned Oliver.

"Get ready. We're going to Texas." she told him.

Oliver, who never said a word, looked at her surprised, as he knew that Texas was the last place for both of them to go to.

"I know, but it's important." she said in response to the look on his face.

And so it went. The first transport they could get to Texas, they took it. Hoping that they wouldn't be too late. Hana had no idea of what "Heartless" is about, but with the bit she did know, she decided to inform Oliver.

"As I understand it..." she told him, "... this guy Nemo has found a way to take something away from people and allow it to take some kind of physical form. I don't know what it is, but he keeps calling people's darkness."

Oliver looked surprised at the sound of the word darkness. This somehow sounded familiar to him.

"You know what this is about?" Hana noticed the look on his face, "If only you could talk."

At that remark, Oliver sighed deeply, which got Hana to stop talking. He looked at his hand, which he could change into a black and much stronger version of what it was. When Hana noticed he did exactly that, she shouted at him: "Don't do that! Especially not when we get there."

Oliver changed his hand back to normal, before looking away from Hana.

They arrived at a place called Primatech Paper. On the outside, it looks like just another company that makes papers. But inside, underground, was an entirely different story. Knowing that there would be people recognizing both Hana and Oliver inside the building, they wore masks to hide their faces. As for the security, they weren't much of any trouble to their combined forces.

Somewhere inside, however, we could find Nemo, talking to a man with horn-rimmed glasses, who was accompanied by a Haitian guy. All three of them were looking through a shatterproof window, where they could look into a room where a black specimen was lying on a table, connected to a lot of wires.

"Is this to your liking, Mr. Nemo?" the man with glasses asked him.

Nemo, who stood at the man with glasses's right side (so the latter could only see the side of him that laughed), didn't turn his head to say: "If this works, you're saying that I can completely control that Heartless?"

"Are you now doubting our expertise?" the man asked him.

"Sir." one of the doctors suddenly spoke to them, "We're ready for the first test."

"Proceed." the man with glasses ordered.

The doctor picked up something that looked like a remote-control device, with which he pressed a few buttons, which got the Heartless to move.

"Success!" the doctor exclaimed.

"Then I assume we're finished here." Nemo stated.

"That's right." the man with glasses said, "You are."

Nemo heard a gun clicking next to his ear, but he kept the grin on his face: "You really think you can kill me?"

"Orders from high up." the man replied.

Meanwhile, the Haitian guy started to feel unwell. The man noticed, so he turned to look at him: "What's wrong?"

"He's come to the realization that he can't do anything to me." Nemo laughed, as he turned to show both men that they were talking to Laughing Nemo.

"Wha... you...?" the man panicked, right before he and the Haitian guy got knocked out by Crying Nemo.

"Enough playing around?" Crying Nemo wondered.

"We have." Laughing Nemo replied.

Both became one again, before they jumped through the window, into the room, killing every doctor present.

As Nemo was collecting data from the computers, he felt that he wasn't alone in the room. He turned around, only to have somebody's elbow being punched in his face.

"That's far enough." Hana told him, "Project 'Heartless' ends here."

"I don't know who you are." Nemo replied, "But you're absolutely right."

Nemo used his own feet to knock Hana down, after which he grabbed the remote-control, randomly pressed a few buttons, just as Oliver arrived on the scene, to smash it out of his hands, destroying it as it hit the floor. All this resulted in the Heartless on the table to go haywire and to start wrecking everything around him. It looked like the conventional shadows, except with a few cybernetic adjustments, helping it have the same size as that of an average human.

"I'll take care of that... thing." Hana told Oliver, "You take care of that man."

Oliver nodded, as the two of them started their attack. When Nemo split himself again, Oliver saw the need to do something which he knew he shouldn't do. But as the Heartless that Hana fought was giving her a hard time, as well as two Nemo's gradually winning the fight with Oliver, he decided he had no other choice. He changed his entire body into a fighting machine and continued this fight as thus. In this form, in combination with Hana's training, and after some time a recovered Hana, this became a virtually unstoppable combination. Nemo, on the other hand, allowed his two selves to become one again, and fell down. With him down, Oliver felt he could change back into his usual self, and fight the Heartless alongside Hana.

While they were trying to beat it, Nemo silently crept back up, stole the data from the computers, after which he opened another portal that got him away from there.

Eventually, the Heartless was beaten, but neither Oliver or Hana understood what happened with that Nemo character.

"Well, that other thing disappeared after we've beaten it, maybe this guy does as well." Hana was thinking out loud, but then reconsidered, "No. That thing wasn't human, this man was. Their has to be some other explanation."

Oliver, again, didn't say anything. He just looked around at the mess that was made. Then Hana helped him to snap out of it: "Come on, we've got some files to erase."

**THE END**


	20. Cloverfield

Disclaimer: the narrator of the story is mine. "Cloverfield" is created by J.J. Abrams.

* * *

**Cloverfield**

I don't know... what happened exactly. One moment I was walking on Times Square, the next... everything fell apart.

I'm not a local resident. I was just visiting the city for the week. Yes, to see this entire city, even in one weekend, it's not enough. So there I was, minding my own business, at some point in need of refreshment, so I went to an ice-cream vendor, and ordered one of these so-called Slusho's that everyone around here seemed to like. Yes, I was curious as to how it would taste. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion. Like everyone else, I didn't know what was going on, so I went to look. Immediately after doing that, I had to find a place to hide, as whatever caused the explosion, it also caused the collapse of some buildings, inevitably bringing about clouds of dust.

Though I was hiding in the nearest building, I could see something through the windows. Much of my view was obscured because of the clouds, but I could swear that I saw something... huge, passing by the window. I can't exactly describe what it was, but I was sure I saw something that looked like a foot, of which I could feel it stomp on the ground, causing everything to shake for a moment. Once it was gone, I thought of leaving, but then there were other things out there that got me to think otherwise. Again, I didn't know what they are, but these I saw more clearly, they looked like huge crabs, but without their pincers. Whatever those things were, I didn't want to go out with them being here.

I took the back door to leave the building. Through the back, I used a fire-staircase to get on top of the building. From there, I saw the monster that passed by the window earlier. That, I don't know how to best describe it. Like us humans, it appeared to have arms, although it walked on all-fours, it has something on his head, that reminded me of a fish's gills, that looked like balloons, it had huge teeth, and these crab-like things I mentioned before seemed to be living on that creature. I must add, however, that most of these things, I could only see it because the military had started to try and destroy it, and all the explosions they caused lit it up like a christmas-tree.

After a while, I remembered that some of these crab-creatures are still here as well. Then I wondered why they haven't tried to climb up to the building I was on. I looked down, only to see them fighting other creatures. Unlike the first ones I saw, these didn't appear in any shape or form related to that giant monster. They looked black, usually naked, sometimes dressed as clowns, sometimes acting like apes, some of them even take stranger forms. I had no idea of what those things were either, but they appeared to be of the same strength as the crab-things, which was enough for me to realize I need to go away as fast as possible.

I managed to get on top of the building next to the building I was already on, and from there I had to either climb or jump my way to other rooftops. Eventually, I made it to the nearest bridge, but it looked as though the monster got here before me, as it was torn apart. While I may not have those crabs behind me, those black things somehow managed to catch up to me. I thought ogf fighting them, but there were too many of them. Eventually, one of the military helped me out of this situation.

This military guy, he wasn't with the ones that were trying to fight the giant monster. He was on a covert operation to take out these black things, which he called Heartless. If was as covert as he claimed, he wouldn't have shared that information with me. All he did tell me is that I need to go to the nearest helicopter bay before 0600, as they won't evacuate anyone else after that anymore.

Since I wasn't a local, I didn't know where to go, so I didn't make it in time. It was a frightening sight to behold, how they had to use stealth-planes to destroy the monster, and it still wouldn't work. On the somewhat brighter side, those other military people managed to round many of these black creatures, or Heartless, together, so even if the monster in question wasn't destroyed, at least those Heartless are taken care of. It wasn't easy to find a good hiding place, but I managed to find two other people, who I helped escape from a collapsed bridge in Central Park, who helped me look. We could only just find some kind of tear in the ground, where we could hide, once they decided to drop the big bomb, which ultimately destroyed the monster. Too bad, for tourist attraction's sake, that there's nothing left of the metropolis that was New York, but I'm lucky, and glad, to have survived through all that.


	21. AnotherEarth

Disclaimer: "Abaranger" is owned by Toei Company. The characters "Doyle" and "Roxton" are mine.

* * *

**Another-Earth**

Life appeared to be going it's easy way in the Dino-House. Everybody who lived and/or worked there, had their reasons to smile, or at the very least to be somewhat happy. All but one of them. A guy, wearing his usual dark blue coat and hood, which obscured his eyes. One of the happier, and possibly the happiest of them all, the yellow girl Ranru, noticed just how sad he appeared. She sat with him and talked to him.

"Come on, don't you ever smile?" she asked him.

Somewhat nervous, as he always is when talking to her, he answered: "I still don't see any reason to do so."

"There doesn't need to be any reason." Ranru tried to convince him, "If you can't smile, than what are you fighting for?"

He didn't know any answer to that, but he for some reason didn't want to give any either.

"You'd better watch what you're doing." the white guy, Nakadai, started, "If you keep being such pessimist, you'd become depressed at a point. Do you know where depression leads to, Doyle?"

The dark guy, Doyle, sighed: "If I did, you probably wouldn't be asking me, right?"

"Darkness." the red guy, Ryouga answered.

"That wasn't how I wanted to put it." Nakadai told Ryouga.

"But that's basicly it, right?" Ryouga kept raving on.

"But you can't expect him to just change, only because you want him to." the blue guy, Yukito, figured, "It was bad enough when you expected that much of me."

"Well, I'd hate to see him turning into what I was." Nakadai reasoned.

Doyle began leaning on his left arm, when suddenly his bracelet, Roxton, spoke: "These people don't know when to give up, do they?"

"That's right!" Ranru answered, "Remember? We're heroes, we can never give up."

Doyle suddenly had enough of them: "I really need to be alone right now."

He got up to leave the house. Ranru pulled on his arm, but he pulled it free and walked out of the house. Ranru still tried to stop him by calling his name, or how she always called him: "Akakuro-kun."

"Leave him be." Yukito told her, "It may be best for him to be alone like this.

"But... how am I supposed to just..." Ranru couldn't take this in.

That's when the black guy, Asuka, decided to talk: "Only when one is alone, he may realize how much he really needs friends like us."

"Or a very close one like you." Nakadai remarked.

Doyle had made it to an abandoned building. The same building where he once held Ranru captive. It's the one place that has most emotional value to him, as this was the first time he was with somebody he wanted to be with.

"Well, if I can be blunt..." Roxton started to talk, "... maybe you should just let Ranru do what she wants to do."

"Do you think I don't want to spend time with her?" Doyle asked him, "Do you think I don't want to have anything to do with her? But... every time she starts talking, her friends need to interfere. I... it's just too much to handle. You should understand that by now."

"But why don't you just tell them that?" Roxton suggested, "Tell them to leave the two of you alone."

"I can't." Doyle answered, "What am I supposed to tell them when I ask this?"

"Would it really be such a drama to just tell everyone how you feel? It's not like they don't know it already." Roxton reasoned.

Doyle sighed very deeply, but not out of boredom, but out of frustration: "You make it all sound so easy. If I just wasn't..."

"Maybe if you'd just sit down for a moment." Roxton suggested, "Think about what I just said."

At the Dino-House, the alarm started to blare. They pressed the hidden button that would reveal all the hidden computers, with which they could check out what's causing the alarm.

"What's going on?" Asuka asked.

Ranru did a quick check, and came to the following conclusion: "A portal just opened."

"Really?" Ryouga looked surprised.

"Somebody from Dino-Earth is trying to get here?" Asuka asked her.

"No." Ranru answered, "It's reading isn't the same. It's a different portal."

"Never mind what it is." Yukito cut in, "Where is it now?"

Ranru pressed a few more buttons to find that out, and when she did, she froze for a moment, before she whispered: "Oh no."

"What? What's the problem?" Ryouga asked her.

"Akakuro-kun." was all she said, as she quickly made her leave.

"What? What's the problem with Doyle?" Ryouga called after her.

"Isn't that obvious?" Nakadai pointed to the screen, "Look where it is."

That's when everybody recognized it too. They all realized where they had to go.

Meanwhile, Doyle was sitting down, leaning against the wall. He was sitting in the same place where he sat that one time, while Ranru was sitting at the pole. At the pole, however, he noticed a shadow, which was weird as he didn't see anything in the light that would create a shadow. After a few seconds, it started to take a more solid form, with more following shortly.

"No time to just sit and think now." Doyle remarked, as he pressed the apropriate buttons on his bracelt and changed into Abaredevil. He fought these shadows, but there appeared to be no end to them.

"Where do these things keep coming from?" Abaredevil wondered.

"How should I know?" Roxton answered, "I don't know everything."

Nearly had one of these things pinned him down, but something shot this one. Abaredevil saw this, then looked around to find the one that did this. He saw Ranru, who was changed into Abareyellow. He felt relieved to see her. And when he did, these creatures started to back off a little.

"They're backing away?" Roxton noticed.

"Happy to see me?" Abareyellow asked him.

"More than you can imagine." Abaredevil replied.

"That's it." Roxton figured it out.

"What is?" Abaredevil asked him.

But that's when the creatures found it in them again to keep fighting.

"Alright!" Ryouga, now Abared, cheered, "You saved some for us."

"This should be easy." Nakadai, now Abarekiller, stated.

"Let's send these things back to where they came from." Asuka, or Abareblack, said.

"Weird things they are." Yukito, or Abareblue, remarked.

While everyone was fighting them, Roxton told Abaredevil: "Ryouga said that were going into darkness, and then these things showed themselves."

"So?" Abaredevil questioned.

"But then they backed off when Ranru's appearance made you happy." Roxton explained, "It's like these things react to your state of emotion."

"Well then, when I stop feeling this bad these things will stop coming." Abaredevil reasoned.

"Should be the case." Roxton answered.

"That's reassuring." Abaredevil remarked.

After some time, these things were defeated. But shortly after their defeat, another one made it's appearance. This one was much larger, purple and horned. When it saw the six of them, it caused an electrical storm, in an attempt to attack them. Abaredevil didn't hesitate to allow Roxton to be more than just a bracelet, but allowing himself to take Roxton's actual form. That of the Blast-Dragon.

"We'd better help him too." Abared said to Abareblack.

"I'm on it." Abareblack replied, "Brachio. Come forth."

A giant Brachiosaurus looking creature, Brachio, came, saying: "Three, two, one, let's go on."

Out of him came the three other Blast-Dragons, Tyranno, Kera, and Ptera. Merging with Abared, Abareblue and Abareyellow, they combined into Abaren-Oh. While this was going on, Roxton took his humanoid form. And once both giants were formed, they fought this Behemoth. Aberen-Oh used his finisher, but the Behemoth was still standing. Roxton then scratched it more, before using his own finisher, and the Behemoth was gone.

Back into their civillian forms, Ryouga tried to make his point to Doyle: "So, you see now what happens when you shut us out?"

Hearing him, Doyle turned his back on them.

"Now you've done it." Ranru whined, but she approached him anyway.

"Akakuro-kun." she talked to him and he turned to look at her, "I... I hate to see you all alone all the time. Maybe... could you just take me to one of these places you always go to?"

Doyle thought about it, then said: "How about here?"

"Here?" Ranru questioned, "Are you sure?"

"Well, then you won't need us anymore, would you!?" Nakadai remarked, as he motioned to the others to leave.

**THE END**


	22. The Faun's Labyrinth

Disclaimer: "Pan's Labyrinth" is created by Guillermo del Toro.

**

* * *

****The Faun's Labyrinth**

A long long time ago, in a world far far away, darkness was blooming. This darkness came under many forms, but mostly, such as shadows, or people, but whatever form they took, they were equally as dangerous. But in these dark times, a key showed itself. The key that would unlock the light that can cast away this darkness. A hero once found the key, and used it against this darkness. Unfortunately, people have seen the power of that key, so they became hungry for it's power. And although the key chooses it's wielder, it's wielder must be strong of heart, which doesn't always mean that the wielder must be good. Dreams, determination, emotions,... all take part into judging the strength of one's heart. Knowing that the key can fall into the wrong hands more easily than one assumes, the hero found a way to hide the key, and to this day, it still hasn't been found.

I always liked reading such stories. They make the world look more interesting than it really is. In these stories, even the smallest or the youngest of us can be heroes, but in reality... the smallest and the youngest must obey to the biggest and the eldest, whether they like it or not. I remember to be reading this story, just when my mother took the book, from which I was reading, out of my hands. I can still hear her say this.

"What's this you're reading?" she asked me, "Dragons? Trolls? Why do you keep reading these things?"

"Why do you keep reading that book?" I asked in return, pointing to a very large one that she held at the time.

"That's different!" she insisted, "At least this is real!"

I should note that the book in question, of which I've forgotten the title by now, describes the most impossible things, yet my mother always believed them to be true. Every time I ask her how she can believe all that, she always answered the same thing, but what she could never answer was: "How?"

"Don't contradict me!" she smacked me on the head after saying that.

Honestly, why should I not be reading fantasy stories, just because the creatures mentioned don't exist, yet believe that there's a force out there that can destroy our world any time it likes? And that's supposed to give me a warm and fuzzy feeling? I always felt a lot better knowing that there are either worse things to fear, and that there are people who can either save you, or encourage you to stand up and do something yourself, making the heroes from the stories obsolete. I know, I sound a like a ten-year-old, if it wasn't for my choice of words. But then, I was ten years old when what I'm about to tell you happened.

That earlier conversation I mentioned, it happened while I, along with my parents, was en route to a little house, somewhere in Spain. The house was old, not to mention that it looked as though it could fall apart any moment. This was a holiday that I can never forget, even when and if I try, as my questioning of my mother's irrational behaviour got me in trouble. Don't worry, this is not one of those stories that would tell you to blindly follow what your parents say. Should it be? As what I had to do was carry all the baggage into the house, alone, even when they were all too heavy for me to even try to push away. In addition, I was to go straight to bed, without food for the rest of the day, or even while it was still daytime.

That night, I wish I could sleep at all, but the hunger kept me awake for most of the night. Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to keep myself busy. Without any books to read, as my mother confiscated them, I decided to try and be busy with a piece of chalk that I found. I always read stories in order to escape the real world, so I thought of using this chalk instead. As a joke, I decided to draw a door in the wall, imagining that this is my way out. Strangely, when I touched the drawn doorknob, it felt quite solid. Solid enough for me to turn it, so the wall opened as though it was an actual door. And what I found beyond that door, was a long hallway. Where it would bring me, I couldn't know. But anywhere away from where I was at the time was good enough for me. I stepped through the door and ran as fast as my hungry body could carry me. At the end of hallway, there was a room, where a strange looking man was sitting at a table, sleeping, thereby leaving all the food on the table unguarded. Since I was hungry, I couldn't help myself, but to eat some of it. After a few bites, I found out that I should not have done it. The sleeping man, or whatever he was, woke up, opened the palms of his hands, so he could see. I know this sounds weird, but this man didn't have eyes in his head, but in his hands. I thought of running, but this man was too fast for me. He blocked my only way out, so if I kept running towards that exit, he could grab me. I don't know what he'd do with me, but his snarls didn't make it seem as though he wanted to do anything friendly. I ran back to the table, and he followed. He stretched out his hand to me. All I could think of to defend myself, was grab a fork that I found there. That fork, I pitched it into the man's hand, thereby destroying it's eye. This made him not only cry in pain, but also saw to it that he couldn't see anything through that eye. Still, he had the other eye, and he'd be more weary of my next move. In his increased anger, it tried to attack again. When I tried to run away again, I tripped and fell. I couldn't stop the man from taking me. That's when a blinding flash appeared, and before I knew it, I held a sort of stick that resembled a key. With this, I beat up the man, so I could escape him.

Once I returned to my room, I shut the door and wiped away the chalk-drawing I made.

"You've got some courage." a voice spoke, which scared me at first too much to turn to see who spoke.

"Don't be afraid." it said, "The Keyblade choose you for your courage."

Hearing him, I could only assume he meant that stick that looked like a key. I eventually turned to look at who spoke to me. It looked like one of those Fauns I read about, but I could never imagine something like that to be real.

"Who are you?" I asked it.

"I am a messenger." the Faun said, "From the Princess of the Underworld."

"A princess?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Yes." the Faun answered, "Our world is about to be engulfed in darkness."

"How?" I asked.

"There's a gate to that world, in the Labyrinth in the woods." the Faun explained, "That gate is now overrun by dark creatures. Shadows, in many different shapes and sizes. I came here to find the Key to lock them away, which that Eye-handed man you met was guarding, but now that you're here, and it acknowledged you to be it's wielder, that is not necessary anymore. Now that you wield the Key, you must take care of that darkness."

"Me?" I hesitated, "But... I'm just a small boy. What can I..."

"A small boy, who has faced that which the Princess fears the most." the Faun said, "What else could you be, but the one to save her kingdom?"

I thought about it. On the one hand, I always wanted to be a hero, but when it came to it, I wasn't sure I could go through with it. Even if I wanted to, there was still one problem, which I told the Faun: "There is one problem. That door is locked."

"And that stops you?" the Faun questioned, "You who just used that chalk to fetch the Key?"

That was something I could not disagree with. So as that Faun said, I drew a door in the door, which opened.

"Be careful." the Faun warned me, "These shadows are attracted to darkness inside one's hearts. Your hatred towards your parents can be enough for them to be attracted towards you."

With that in mind, I had an idea of where some of them might be.

When I looked into my parents' room, I saw that I was right. For them to be as cruel as they've always been to me, it was no surprise that these shadows would be surrounding them. Luckily, for me, there weren't so many of them, so I could use this as practise. I used the Keyblade to destroy them, which worked perfectly fine. Once that was done, I left the house, to go into the woods, and find this Labyrinth.

The Labyrinth wasn't that hard to find, but that gate was. They don't call something like this a Labyrinth for nothing, as it is easy to get lost in something like that. I could destroy all the shadows I saw, but that wouldn't help enough. After some time, I realized that somehow these shadows knew where they had to go. So instead of destroying them, I decided to follow them, to the very center of the Labyrinth, where the gate to the Underworld was. There were many of these shadows, but with the Keyblade, it was easy to take care of them all. Or so I thought at first. As I hadn't eaten much, I didn't have all the energy to destroy them all. It didn't take long before darkness was all that I could see. And when that happened, it was almost as though these shadows grew bigger, until there was nothing else but then.

Out of nowhere, a light appeared before me. It was blinding enough for me, so I couldn't see where it came from. But once my eyes had adjusted themselves, I could see a large hall, with three large thrones. Too large, especially for the people who sat on them. Judging from their clothes, I could only assume that those who sat on two of them to be the King and the Queen of... wherever I was. I say two of those seats, as one of them was empty.

"Very well done." the King said, "The Underworld would have been lost if it weren't for your courage."

"This..." I had some trouble to believe it myself, "This is the Underworld?"

"Yes." the Faun came from behind the King's throne, "Your actions deserved you an audience, as she wanted to thank you personally."

"Who's she?" I wondered.

The Faun didn't answer, but pointed instead. I turned towards where he pointed, and saw a girl of about my own age. This must have been the Princess that the Faun mentioned, I thought to myself. When I looked at her, she smiled. At the time, I didn't have much of an interest in girls, but seeing her... I don't remember what it is that I felt exactly, but I remember it felt more than just good. She stretched out her hands, which was a gesture of which I wasn't sure of how to react. She moved with her hands, motioning for me to come closer. I looked at the Faun and her parents, who merely nodded. So I came closer, holding up my own hands, which she took into hers.

"I have seen that man, but was afraid to fight it. I had been through the worst time of my life, which all made me afraid to come to the Surfaceworld myself. But you showed courage that I never had, and took care of both that scary man and those shadows. For that... I thank you. You are a real hero, if ever there was one. And if anyone ever thinks otherwise, remember what I told you."

When she let go of one of my hands, I felt something fall into it. When I looked, I saw it was a sort of red cloth, which had her initials printed on it: P.M. The P, I can assume, meant Princess, but the M, I don't know.

"Something to remember me by." she said, after which she pulled me closer to her, so she could kiss my cheek.

I don't know why, but everything became dark before me again, after which I woke up in a hospital. If I'm to believe my parents, I was found in the Labyrinth, surrounded by rapid dogs. If they hadn't scared them away with their flashlights, they would have eaten me. That's what they say, but I don't think so. Since adults usually don't believe to have seen what they saw, they must have thought that those shadows were just dogs. But with them being shadows, I'm sure their flashlights just made them go away. What happened to the Keyblade, I don't know. My guess is that it thought I wasn't strong enough to wield it any longer, so it left me. All I did still have was that red cloth that the Princess gave me. It looked a little dirty, as though it had been laying in the woods for so long, but there was no mistaking it. To be called a hero, by a princess of all people, that's the biggest compliment anyone could ever give me.

**THE END**


	23. 2027 AD

Disclaimer: "Terminator" is created by James Cameron.

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**2027 A.D.**

We were summoned by John Connor one night, when he tried to tell us that our opponent, the Machines, were using a new weapon. What it was, we didn't know at the time, but even when we did, we (or at least I) still had some difficulty believing it.

When we all arrived in the briefing area, or what was left of it, Connor started his briefing by showing us a glass box. On it's own, it would have meant nothing, until we saw what was inside it. When I saw it, I thought it was a huge bug, the size of a small child, completely black, save for it's eyes that were yellow.

"This is what Skynet, for some reason, keeps calling Heartless." Connor told everyone, "We're not sure how they were made, or how they do what can, but what we do know is that they appear to be attracted by angry people. That's to say, it would attack someone angry much sooner than someone smiling."

"That doesn't sound too good." the one called Kyle remarked, "I mean, we're all angry at the machines, for what they've done to us."

"Exactly." Connor replied, "Now based on where we know where these things have been sighted, we think we've determined where they are made. In other words, our next objective is to..."

That's when somebody got up quite violently and raised a gun. Connor saw him and ducked down, just before that man could fire his gun. It was a Terminator. I couldn't believe it somehow managed to enter this area without anyone, or anything (like the dogs) even noticing it's presence. I immediately raised my gun to shoot it, as did Kyle. What we did didn't destroy the Terminator, but at least immobilized it.

After all things had quieted down, Conner took both Kyle and me apart, and told us what we had to do: "With that Terminator in our mids, we may be able to find out Skynet's next move. And with what I've just seen you both do back there, I think I can trust only you two to do this. Here..."

He showed us a map, where he pointed out the location of where these Heartless were made: "... is their point of origin. You go there, and destroy the building. Understood?!"

"Yes sir!" both Kyle and I agreed.

Thus, we moved out to that location. We encountered a few H.K.'s on our way, but they were too slow to notice our presence. We were lucky that there were no guards at the door. No mechanical guards, that is, as the Machines decided to use these Heartless to guard the building. I do wonder why they'd use these things, as they're too easy to destroy with our weapons. Or were these just experimental ones? Like the first models of the Terminators? If that's the case, then we couldn't afford to fail this mission, which made us all the more determined to succeed.

Once inside the building, we saw how notably small it was. It was just big enough to have one machine inside, that appeared to be either making one of these Heartless, or trying to make it stronger.

"Looks like they're already trying to make them stronger." I told Kyle.

"So, you must be the champions of this world." a strange laughing and crying voice said.

Both of us turned to look, and saw someone with clown make-up on his face. Although, I must admit the make-up looked so real, as though it was his actual face.

"What are you?" Kyle asked him, "You're too small for a Terminator."

"Maybe." he replied, "But not only Terminators can destroy a world."

"Whatever." I said, "Let's just shoot him."

When I shot him, he dodged everything that came out of my gun. How he did it, I'm not sure, but I could swear he somehow multiplied himself into two of himself.

"Nice try." one of them, who laughed, remarked.

"That wasn't very nice." the other one, who cried, whined.

"What is that guy?" Kyle wondered.

"Already a more advanced version of these things." I deduced.

"No I'm not." the laughing one said, "But that thing over there will be soon enough."

"That's right." the crying one added.

"Not if we can help it." Kyle was about to point his gun to the Heartless in the machine.

"No!!!" the crying one shouted, as he ran to stop Kyle.

What follows is a fight, of these us two soldiers versus those two... whatever they were. During the fight, however, I managed to throw the laughing one into the machine, which not only destroyed it, but also killed the Heartless inside it.

"Oh no! Not another failiure." the crying one whined.

This gave Kyle an opening to knock him down as well. That's when we could pursue our mission.

"Alright, let's plant the explosives." I said.

When we were finished doing that, we ran out of the building, where we used the detonator to blow it up.

"Now they'll have to be more creative in killing us, don't they?" Kyle remarked.

I laughed at that remark, until I saw something at a distance. I'm not sure of what it was, but I swear it looked like that guy we met inside, but in one piece again. Did he manage to get out in time? Or was my mind playing tricks on me. I'll have to report this to John Connor when we get back, just in case.

**THE END**


	24. Matrix

Disclaimer: "The Matrix" is created by the Wachowski broghters.

**

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**

Matrix

The man they chased, albeit for their collegue Smith's own idea of a personal vendetta, was dead, yet somehow found it within himself to get up. They tried shooting the man, but all he did was raise his hand, and stopped the bullets. After that, Smith ran to the man himself, fought him, and in a somewhat unusual manner, he lost the fight, leaving only the man who, apparently, can't die. The two remaining looked at each other, knowing of one another what he had deduced, and both decided to run for it.

As the two split up, the one didn't know what happened to the other. This one particular individual ran into a deserted alley. Once there, he stopped. Not because he decided he can't hide from what he was running from, or because he remembered he doesn't need to run. He stopped because he saw something in front of him that appeared out of place. What he saw were things that had the appearance of a one-wheeled bicycles, with arms like guns, and black faces and yellow eyes. All of which were accompanied by a huge purple cannon on four legs. By appearance, the man percieved them to look nothing special, but upon further examination, he noticed that these things, to all intends and purposes, shouldn't be here. But before he could begin to figure out what they were or how they came to be, they attacked him. But the man, being faster than... most others, barely had to make one move to take them all down. When he took them down, they disappeared, allowing some heart-shaped glowing matter to fly away. Upon his sudden victory, there came a clapping, as of someone applauding what he had just accomplished.

"Very impressive." a voice said.

The man looked to where the clapping and the voice came from. He saw someone, whose face looked like he was smiling on one side and crying on the other (which was also how his voice sounded, both laughing and crying), whose clothes resembled that of those people he often chased, yet there was something about him that him look different to everything he's seen before.

"You don't read human." the man said.

"Correct." the laughing/crying man replied.

"You don't even register as a program." the man continued.

"So I don't." the laughing/crying man acknowledged.

"What are you?" the man asked.

"Now you disappoing me." the laughing/crying man replied, "Good thing I don't need you for your intelligence."

The man would feel rage if he could. However, part of his reason of being is to guard this world, search for any anomalies and take care of them. This laughing/crying man is one such anomaly, and needs to be dealt with. He ran to the man, and another fight broke loose. As neither one of them were in any sort of way human, both were very fast, so this battle could take ages. It didn't take long before the laughing/crying man suddenly split himself into two. One laughing and one crying. The fight lasted long, until suddenly, the laughing man held one arm of the man he was fighting, and the crying man held the man's other arm. The man suddenly stood stiff, as though something was supposed to happen, but nothing did.

"Trying to jump to another body?" the laughing man asked him.

"That's not possible anymore." the crying man told him.

The man couldn't understand it: "What are you?"

"Take him now." the laughing man commanded.

Upon command, more of these strange creatures attacked this man. As he was immobilized this time, he couldn't fight back, and eventually, he too has succombed to the darkness.

"That agent never stood a chance." the laughing man snickered.

"He couldn't handle the power we gained from that little miss gamer." the crying man sniffed.

"If this is what her power can do alone, imagine what his could do." the laughing man realized, "Along with anything else we've aquired so far."

"We still haven't got everything." the crying man stated.

"It would about time if we did." the laughing man spoke, upon which he and the crying man became one entity again, and said: "So let's not waste it."

**THE END**


	25. Bum's Shelter

Disclaimer: "Bum Reviews" is owned by Doug Walker.

Note: I am fully aware that there is no "Kingdom Hearts" movie, but I couldn't think of a better one for this character to review.

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**And now it's time for Bum Reviews, with Chester A. Bum.**

**Tonight's review: Kingdom Hearts**

"OH MY GOD!!! THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!"

"There's this kid, with very large shoes. And he's like: "I want to go to other worlds."!"

"And then there's this mouse, who's apparently a king. And he's like: "I'm leaving and I'm not telling you why, coz you can suck it. HAHAH!"

"And they are out to stop these little monsters, called Hear-ma-tuh-less!"

"I was a Hear-ma-tuh-less once! At least, that's what my girlfriend used to call me. Which was so unfair. Especially after I ate hers."

"So these monsters, are all out to steal people's hearts, and then these people also turn into these monsters."

"Oh, so they're vampires!"

"Except that they don't suck your blood, don't look attractive, and don't have teeth. Didn't I see that in "Twilight" already?!"

"And this kid is fights these monsters, and is helped by Goofy and Donald Duck!"

"I was a duck once! What plastic surgery can't do for you."

"And so our heroes travel to many different worlds! Frontierland, Fantasyland, Discoveryland, Adventureland,..."

"Oh wait, wrong world."

"And so our heroes travel to see Aladdin, Alice, Jack Skelington, Tarzan,..."

"Wait a minute they're still going to Disney World!"

"That's what I like about this movie, it brings me to places I can never imagine going."

"Unless I'm high."

"This is Chester A. Bum saying.... CHANGE!!! You got change?! Ah come on! Help a guy out here, will ya... come on, change!"

"Well can you at least help me get to Disney World? I heard they need a new bum character!"

**THE END**


	26. Shinigami World

Disclaimer: "Death Note" is owned by Tsugumi Ohba

* * *

**Shinigami World**

It has been many years since the notorious Kira was caught and killed. But despite that, the shinigamis haven't been fairing much better. With one man killing so many people, using one of their own Death Notes, it left little room for the shinigamis to kill others in order to prolong their own lives, so they died. So there were only a few left, and what once a barren wasteland filled with shinigamis playing games, is now a wasteland with few still left.

One of these shinigamis found a skull. Which in itself wasn't that unusual, but he recognized the skull in question. He knew the individual to whom it once belonged.

"I already thought this is what the world would look like now." he said, "Light... you almost became a god over us too."

He threw the skull away. He waited for it to fall down. He froze once he didn't hear it fall.

"Huh? There's usually a crack when that happens."

"You mean like this?!" a voice spoke, followed by a loud crunch.

The shinigami turned to look. Before him stood someone, wearing a long black coat, whose face seemed to be crying on one side and laughing on the other. He looked human, but the shinigami knew he wasn't. If he was, he'd see his name and date of death appear above his head. Neither were visible. The shinigami spotted white dust on the man's left hand, as well as the remains of that skull on the ground, just underneath his hand.

"You just cracked that skull!" the shinigami said.

The man frowned: "I thought I'd taken Captain Obvious's heart two worlds ago."

"Captain who?" the shinigami replied, "Wait. Did you just say "two worlds ago"?"

"Yes." the man replied, "But as I've noticed, the people around here seem to be concerned about just the one world."

"It's just one we discovered by chance." the shinigami explained, "We later found out we can use the lives of the people in that world to prolong our own."

"So you have." the man replied, "Tell me, how do you shinigamis reproduce?"

"That's easy!" the shinigami exclaimed, "We just... we just..."

He seemed to need some time to think about it.

The man grinned: "You've forgotten, haven't you?"

Before the shinigami can reply, the man continued: "I don't blame you. You've been around for how long? Hundreds of years? Thousands? Dozens of thousands? You'd forget little details like those. And who would need it? If you can live forever, why would you even think of creating offspring, so something of you would survive even after you're gone."

"Did you just come here to make fun of us?!" the shinigami was starting to lose patience.

"Far from it." the man replied, "I came to give you a way out of your predicament."

"We don't need it!" the shinigami replied, "We don't need your help!"

"Actually, you'd be helping me." the man said.

"Why would I want to?" the shinigami asked.

"Who said I need you to want to?" the man answered.

The shinigami didn't know what to make of this man. That was when he heard a strange noise. Something was happening behind him. He turned to look. What he witnessed then made little sense, even in a world like this. Shadows were crawling over the wasteland, and one by one they started to materialize. Even this shinigami knew that shadows are usually made when light shines onto objects, but these shadows seemed to be the very objects themselves. And when they materialized, they became bug-like things, of roughly the same size as the man this shinigami has been talking to. Even stranger was the fact that parts of their bodies were mechanized.

"Interesting." the shinigami said.

"Changed your mind already?" the man said, "You disappoint me."

The shinigami chuckled: "I was beginning to fear that I'd return to a boring life here again. But you just made it interesting."

"Did I now?" the man replied, "Great. So we have a willing candidate now."

This, the shinigami didn't understand: "Candidate? For what?"

"Take him!" the man ordered, and the mecha-shadows attacked the shinigami.

The shinigami did what he could to fend them off, but these mecha-shadows were too strong. Even if he managed to take one down... the results varied. Either he destroys their shadow part, but the machine parts keep fighting until their shadow parts are destroyed. Or he destroys their machine parts, so only the shadows remain. While they were easy to defeat when they're just shadows, by then he'd have too little strength left to do any more battle. It didn't take long before he was overrun, and consumed by these mecha-shadows.

The man, meanwhile, split himself up into two entities. One who laughed, the other who cried.

"How touching." the crying one said, "How our hard work is paying off."

"Yes." the laughing one agreed, "And since this world has very few inhabitants, we'd have taken it over in no time at all. We can finally set up a base camp."

"Pity..." the crying one whined, "... that we only have a few random hearts taken."

"You're right." the laughing one replied, "Just random hearts make no real army. We'll just let the Heartless continue raiding this world, while we look for a decent army."

"Agreed." the crying one said, upon which the two became one entity again.

**THE END**


	27. Kromagg Prime

Disclaimer: based on situations created by Tracy Tormé and Robert K. Weiss and characters owned by Toei Company.

* * *

**Kromagg Prime**

Still recovering from their last adventure, everyone was still asleep when the old man was getting himself a midnight snack. Being as old as he was, he was starting to lose his way around the house. He even forgot where the light-switch was. He fumbled around in the dark, hoping he'd find it. Instead, he found a chain. Not sure what it belonged to, he yanked it. A loud bang sounded through the room, like a sudden thunderclap. He then remembered what it was. He just yanked the chain on one of his backdrops. Silly me, he thought, and continued about his business.

The next morning, everyone woke up at the sound of something crashing at their front door. The first one to leave his room and check, was the one called Tsukasa, who opened the door to find...

"Kaitou...?"

He looked at the man who now lay at his feet. He knew him to be a treasure hunter, who rarely (if at all) comes to them for help. But the way he looked, all bruised and bloody, it made him realize just how serious the situation must be. He helped the man up and inside the house.

As the man was put down on a seat, it didn't take long until two others came down.

"What's going on, Tsukasa-chan?" the young girl asked.

"I don't know, Natsumikan." Tsukasa replied, "This is how I found him."

"Daiki?" she was just as surprised to see him.

With her helping Tsukasa tending to Daiki, the remaining guy noticed something: "I'm sorry, did any of you change the backdrop?"

"No." Tsukasa replied, "Why do you ask, Yuusuke?"

"Because I don't remember this one." he pointed at the backdrop.

Tsukasa looked as well. He couldn't make sense of the backdrop either. It showed what looked like a red whirlwind, from which a huge flying machine emerged. This was shown above what looked like a gray and futuristic city, inhabited by an unusual species of apes.

"What world is this?" Tsukasa wondered.

"Kro... Kroma..." Daiki tried to say.

"Daiki!" Natsumikan seemed more cheerful this time.

"Please tell us." Yuusuke started towards him, "What world is this?"

"Do you mind! He's in no condition to talk!" Natsumikan told him.

"Kromagg." Tsukasa said.

They all looked at him.

"I heard of these people." Tsukasa explained, "Think I'm the destroyer of worlds? They're supposed to be worse."

"What are you saying?" Natsumikan asked, "They're traveler like us?"

"A whole race of them?" Yuusuke almost sounded excited.

"But if they were..." Tsukasa realized, "... wouldn't they have a way to detect us entering?"

"They... wouldn't..." Daiki was slowly recovering, "They use... a different way to... enter other worlds. They don't know ours."

"That's good to hear." Natsumikan said.

"So these Kromaggs, did they do this to you?" Tsukasa asked.

"Yes." he replied, "They may not be able to detect us... but a few of them saw me enter... they captured me and... tortured me for information."

"What did you tell them!?" Tsukasa barked.

"Nothing." Daiki answered, "You really think... I would give up... that easily?"

"Er... guys?" Yuusuke spoke, while he was looking outside the window, "I don't think he needed to tell them anything."

"Why? What makes you say that." Tsukasa asked.

"That's why." he pointed at something outside.

Both Tsukasa and Natsumikan looked. Outside a large ship was landing just in front of their house. And from that ship came a small army of the same ape-like beings that were on the backdrop.

"Kromaggs." Tsukasa said, "Looks like we have to fight them."

Both Yuusuke and Natsumikan nodded, and all three of them left the house.

As they were leaving, all three of them were getting ready for battle. Tsukasa raised his Deca-driver, which he put on his belly, allowing it to become his belt. He opened the driver's slot, in which he inserted a card.

"Henshin." he said, as he closed the slot, and changed into the warrior known as Decade.

Yuusuke placed his hands on his belly, where he willed his own belt to appear.

"Henshin!" he shouted, and the belt turned him into the bug-like fighter called Kuuga.

Natsumikan was chased by a small white bat-like thing. She caught it and held it in front of her.

"Henshin." she said, cheerfully, upon which she transformed into the combatant named Kivala.

All three of them exited the house and faced the small Kromagg army.

"What?" one of them cried, "What's with those suits?"

"Does it matter?" another said, "They got knowledge that shouldn't belong to these animals."

"Animals?" Kivala was astonished, "Is that what we are to you?"

"Maybe we are." Decade told them, "But... can an animal do this?"

He inserted another card into his driver, which allowed him to summon a gun, with which he shot the Kromaggs. Some were down instantly, while others were merely annoyed by it. The rest got angered and went for the offensive.

The Kromaggs, though highly advanced their technologies and their fighting techniques may be, none of them had ever anticipated the kind of strength that these three transformed humans might have possessed. It didn't take long before the Kromaggs were forced to retreat into their ship and leave the premises.

"You said they were worse?" Kuuga asked Decade, "They seem easy to me."

"Don't underestimate them." Decade warned them, "This was merely their first wave."

Suddenly, they heard a clapping, as of someone applauding them. Though judging from the rhythm at which the applause went, it didn't seem like the person meant anything genuinely positive.

"So this is the infamous Decade I heard so much about." a voice sounded.

"There!" Kivala pointed to the rooftop.

The other two looked up as well. Upon the roof sat a man in a long black coat, with a strange sort of facial expression, as if he was crying on one side of his face and laughing at the other.

"Who are you?" Kuuga asked.

"Nemo." was his reply, "And you are...?"

Kuuga was about to answer, but Decade cut in on him: "We're just passing through Kamen Riders. Remember that."

Nemo scratched his chin, as if he needed to think about that: "I suppose I could remember that. Not that it would make a difference if I did."

"What does that mea..."

Before Decade to finish his question, they heard an explosion. All three Riders looked up. They saw smoke, coming from the Kromagg ship, which was crashing because of it.

"What happened there?" Kivala wondered.

"Just a little souvenir I left in there." Nemo replied, "Though I wish they hadn't discovered it so soon."

"You put a bomb in there?" Kuuga asked.

"Why would I do that?" Nemo replied, "The Kromaggs have armies that rule over many worlds. And I hope to claim that army. It wouldn't do me any good to bomb them."

"You wish to claim their armies?" this sounded unreal, even to someone who's seen some unreal things so far.

Decade had other concerns: "More importantly, if that wasn't a bomb, then wha..."

A scream came from inside the house.

"Grandfather?" Kivala cried.

Sure enough, the old man burst out of the house, only to collapse and... fade out of existence, leaving behind a glowing heart-shaped object. Before these events could sink in with the three Riders, they saw something crawl out through the door and climb up the roof to meet with Nemo. The latter looked at something which his visitor was holding.

"Interesting." Nemo said, and picked it up, for all three to see.

"Isn't that...?" Kuuga asked.

"Kaitou's Diend-driver." Decade agreed, "What have you done to him?"

"Same thing as what just happened to that old man." Nemo replied, "The same thing I was hoping to do with the Kromaggs. And the same thing as I'm about to do to you."

"Why don't you just try!" Kivala shouted, more determined than ever.

"Yeah..." Nemo said, "Though it looks like my Mecha-Heartless will need some assistance here.

"Your Mecha-what?" Kuuga wondered.

Nemo picked up the Diend-driver (which looked a lot like a gun), as well as a card that came with it.

"Now... If I got this right, I insert this here..." he inserted the card into the gun's slot, upon which the gun said: "Kamen Ride."

Next he cocked the gun, and it said: "Diend!"

The gun fired a few shots, which somehow became a suit for Nemo to wear, so he became the warrior called Diend. Kivala was about to say something about this, but more of these Mecha-Heartless started to pop up, surrounding the three Riders.

"You really think the likes of these can stop us?" Decade questioned.

"I never underestimate my enemy, Decade." Nemo replied.

Nemo took more cards from the gun and inserted them in its slot, one by one. For every card, he fired a shot, and from every shot a new warrior emerged. The three Riders beat those summoned warrior easily, but Nemo kept coming with new ones, exhausting the three. And as they were fighting, none of them noticed how the number of Mecha-Heartless were increasing. So even if they survive the last few warriors that Nemo could use against them, they could never hope to win a fight against such a large number of foes.

**THE END**


	28. Acme Labs

Disclaimer: based on characters owned by Warner Bros.

* * *

**Acme Labs**

Pinky sat staring at the screen. When one of the characters on the screen started lighting up like a newborn sun, he drooled at the sight of it. So much so, he didn't notice when the shadow behind him started to have a life of its own. It crawled up into the air, until it at last towered over Pinky. It raised its arm, making itself ready to strike down, but got interrupted when the TV-screen started short-circuiting. A crackling noise sounded from the set, which Pinky didn't notice until it caused the static on the screen.  
"Wow!" he said, "I didn't know Edmund could do that!"  
Not too long after this, the TV-set exploded, blowing Pinky and his shadow completely to the back of the room.  
"Pinky! Are you alright?" the other mouse, Brain asked him, seemingly concerned about his partner in crime.  
He heard a high-pitched laughter, followed by: "So that's what they mean with "Twin-Light is intense."."  
Brain hunched his shoulders: "Yes. They mean they're on your level."  
Pinky's response was more high-pitched laughter, followed by the word: "Narf."  
"But it looks like my experiment was a success." Brain stated.  
"What experiment, Brain?"  
"Simple." Brain explained, "The world has been invaded by strange creatures, that they call Heartless."  
"Yegot, Brain." Pinky responded, "That sounds dangerous! Oh, wait, no. I don't even know what a Heartless is."  
"You do surprise me." Brain stated.  
"I do?" Pinky neither caught or understood the sarcasm in Brain's tone.  
"A Heartless..." Brain started to explain, but was interrupted when something started flapping before his eyes. He swatted it away, then continued: "A Heartless is a creature that can suck out all the darkness that resides in you. All your anger, your grieve..."  
"My lunch too?" Pinky wondered, scared.  
Brain grabbed Pinky's snout and pulled him down: "If they sucked out intelligence, they'd starve on you."  
Just when Brain was about to let go, that thing that flapped before his eyes returned. With this, he grabbed Pinky's snout even tighter, then used him as a baseball-bat, and splattered the thing, not caring about whether or not Pinky might have broken one or two bones.  
"I'll have to see if I can solve our little bug-problem later." Brain said, "As I was saying, if I could create my own Heartless, have it follow my every whim, they'll not only save us all from the other Heartless, but if it were to turn everyone into Heartless too, the whole world would be under my control, and I... I'd finally achieved world domination!"  
"Zort!" Pinky replied, "Brilliant Brain!"  
"It would have been." Brain sounded less jubilant this time, "Unfortunately, that explosion destroyed my first Heartless. So it looks like I'll have to resuscitate it. Now where could it be..."  
"What, Brain?" Pinky asked, "Where could what be?"  
"Its heart, Pinky." Brain replied, "When a Heartless dies, it always leaves a heart-shaped object flying about. It should be here, but I can't see it."  
"Oh, is that what it was?" Pinky said.  
Brain looked relieved, as he suddenly picked Pinky up: "You've seen it? Where?"  
"Yeah." Pinky replied, "I saw something flying right before I got up. Now that I think about it, that bug you just killed looked quite like it."  
"Bug?" Brain suddenly looked horrified.  
He turned Pinky around. And sure enough, there he found the remains of what he dismissed as a bug before, but it turned out they were the remains of the Heartless' heart. In a panic, Brain scraped together what little he could salvage of that heart.  
"Quick, Pinky!" Brain exclaimed, "We must find a way to revive this heart."  
Brain ran as quick as he could.  
"Poit." Pinky said, "Why don't you just make a new one?"  
"I could." Brain said, "But I had only one machine made to produce these. And that just blew up."  
Pinky needed to think this over. What Brain meant was that the TV itself was what had created the Heartless, but Pinky was too slow to understand as much. As he was pondering this over, Brain had put the remains of the heart near a defibrillator. Brain knew the machine wouldn't be able to jump-start the heart, but after he made a few altercations to it, he believed it could. Once the alterations were made, he placed its paddles atop the remains of the heart. He charged the machine, upon which he shouted: "Clear!"  
What followed happened too fast for either Brain or Pinky to register. All either of them knew was that once it happened, they were out cold for a time. When they finally woke up, they felt the cold wind surrounding them, they smelled the ashes of something that burned not too long ago, and felt something they could only describe as dirt covering them. When they looked up, they realized the building they once inhabited wasn't there anymore. All that remained were loose bricks, broken glass, burned wood and torched equipment.  
"Pinky." Brain mumbled, "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"  
"I think so Brain." Pinky replied, "But why would we need to wear red pants with yellow buttons?"  
"No, Pinky!" Brain said, "In using the defib, I just blew up our home base for my world domination plans, and our last line of defense against the whole world!"  
"That's quite alright." Pinky tried to consul him, "We could always join the "Twin-Light" crew."  
Brain picked up a piece of glass, and smacked it onto Pinky's head.  
"Come, Pinky." he said, "We better find ourselves a new lab, and prepare for tomorrow-night."  
"Why Brain?" Pinky wondered, "What are we going to do tomorrow-night?"  
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky." he answered, "Try... to take over the world!"

**THE END**


	29. Bullshit-Man's Dump

Disclaimer: based on the series by James Rolfe.

* * *

**Bullshit-Man's Dump**

You Know What's Bullshit!?

Darkness! Why is it bullshit? Why are you even fucking asking that question!?

You can never see anything in darkness! Sure, you can turn the light on, or light a candle back in the days. But guess what! You need to see where the fucking switch is! Or even need to fucking see where there are candles or matches! Doesn't that completely beat the purpose of having lights?

But that's not all! There's the time of day. It's light when you're awake, but dark when you go to sleep. That's fine. But then there are times when night falls a lot sooner than before! So guess what, you can't even leave the house without a fucking flashlight.

And to make things worse, when it's dark on this fucking side of the globe, it's light on the other side! So you can't fucking call someone who's on the other side, because they're asleep while you're awake!

If these Heartless I've been hearing so much about lately indeed feed on darkness, I sure hope they can make the darkness go away. Because as I just proved, darkness is bullshit!

**THE END**


	30. Texas

Disclaimer: based on characters created by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel

* * *

**Texas**

How he survived it, he doesn't know. But then, with everything his family had done to him so far, he knew he was strong enough to survive anything. Even if it is getting a chainsaw through his gut. It was painful, he had to admit, but it was nothing a little bit of glue couldn't handle. Assuming he could even find any glue, what with that bomb that exploded shortly after he left the dining room.

But ever since his new home was blown up, and with all his remaining family dead, he had nowhere else to go. Though he did remember there once was another house where they lived. Until that one girl escaped them, and they had to move away. He didn't know the exact road back to that house, but he figured that the world couldn't be that big. So if he just kept walking forward, he come across it eventually. And so, he picked up his chainsaw, and started his long walk to his old home.

After four days of wandering aimlessly, surviving by eating whatever animal he could find on the road, and what little liquid he could find to drink, some would have given up on their search. But not this man. Some would say he was very driven, while others would say he was too dumb to realize the stupidity behind his efforts. Of course, he felt, the trip would be a lot shorter if one of these cars that drove by would stop to give him a lift. One such cars was about to drive right past him. He could hear it coming. He also heard some noise coming from it. A noise he knew only too well. It was the noise of what his father would call "damkits". He never understood damkits either. More often than not, even when he's not chasing them with his chainsaw raised, they'd often be shouting, screaming and crying, when there's nothing to shout, scream or cry about. And this, he felt, was one of those times. As the car was nearing, he started revving up his chainsaw. With every pull on the cord, the car was coming closer. But as the chainsaw wouldn't start, he looked at it. He punched it a few times, hoping it'll cooperate this time. As luck would have it, it started up this time. As it did, he noticed a light in the corner of his eye. Maybe it was his chainsaw. He's seen it before, that sometimes lights would be flying out of it, like stars falling from his saw. As the car drive past him, he raised his chainsaw and hit the car's roof, from the windshield, through the doors, until it existed through the window at the back. As it did so, he saw those same stars being shot from his chainsaw. But as he looked inside the car, he noticed something weird. Earlier, he heard damkits making noise, but there was no one inside the car. They couldn't have just disappeared. Could they? As luck would have it, with no one inside, nobody was steering the car in the right direction, so it hit a nearby billboard. As it did so, the man realized that maybe the damkits saw him, and hid themselves somewhere in the car. It seemed the only logical explanation to him. So he set out to investigate.

At the car, he raised his chainsaw, and used it to open the car's trunk. As soon as it was open, he didn't know what he saw. What was inside it wasn't a damkit, nor was it any animal he had ever seen. But whatever they were, they had started to swarm themselves around him. Feeling threatened by these things, he hit them with his still running chainsaw. He hit one of them, but that didn't seem to do anything. His chainsaw clearly cut it, but the cut grew shut again. He tried hitting it multiple times, and it was the tenth hit that finally killed it. But that wasn't the really strange part just yet. What was stranger was that this thing disappeared, leaving only a shining flying object in its place, which flew away. He couldn't understand what happened, but he didn't have time to think about it either, because all the other ones were still there. He did the same to them as he did to this one creature, and they all ended up the same way. When they were gone, he could sigh in relief. They weren't damkits, but they seemed just as impossible to handle. He switched off his chainsaw, upon which he got himself in the car. Even though it hit a billboard, the engine was still running, so he could use it to drive home. He's seen his family do it before, so how hard could it be? But as soon as that thought went through his head, he saw something appearing on the hood of the car. It was another one of these strange creatures. How it could appear out of nowhere, he didn't know. What he did know is that he had to drive the car away as soon as possible. He stepped on one of the pedals at his feet, but all they did was cause the car to make noises. He tried pressing some of the buttons, pulled the lever on his right,... did whatever he could, but nothing seemed to get the car in motion. Since he couldn't drive away, he thought he should use his chainsaw again. He picked it up, and started revving it up. But like last time, it took its time to start up. He punched it a few more times, but it didn't work this time. And as he was trying to start it up, more of these strange creatures started to emerge around the car. Desperately, he continued starting up his chainsaw. Damkits couldn't kill him, so why would these strange things?

**THE END**


	31. Skull Island

Disclaimer: based on the movie owned by RKO.

* * *

**Skull Island**

The inhabitants were dancing to the drums, some dressed in what can only be described as furry rags, but all singing. All of which was to appease their god. The god they call Kong. Normally, they'd have waited for several more days before such a festival is held, but an inexplicable event forced them to begin earlier. One night, while they were all asleep, all was well. But when the night was over, something had appeared in the middle of their village. They did not know what it was. It was as large as ten huts, but it was made of stronger material. A material they didn't recognize. It wasn't wood and it wasn't rock. What they did know is that the light of the sun somehow bounced on its surface and shone into people's eyes. Afraid of what it might be, the villagers felt they had to act quickly. They dressed up, started their chants and dances, hoping their god would come to their aid. After about an hour of their singing and dancing, something changed. The large "thing" appeared to crack open, causing a hissing sound, and letting out some smoke. Worried, the villagers surrounded the thing, while their bravest/strongest/most curious/dumbest approached the very spot that had cracked open. If they thought the thing itself was weird, it couldn't measure up to the being that come from it. That being looked completely black as a shadow, safe for some parts of its body that seemed to be made of the same material as the larger thing itself. This being had no mouth, nose or hairs, and only two yellow eyes. The more worried ones immediately readied their spears, hoping they could defend themselves should the being decide to attack. What they didn't anticipate was that it was accompanied by several more like it. As more of them began to show, the warriors began their attacks. Unfortunately, the shadow-like being were too fast and too strong for them. Within seconds, they had disarmed the warriors and broken their spears. Most of the villagers started running at the sight of this. But as they did, some of them began to realize something. These beings, whatever they were, ignored the runners. It was as if they had little to no interest in the villagers. But if so, why were they on the island? It didn't take long until at least one of them figured out what they were really up to: they were headed for the Gateway. The one that separates the villagers from the realm of the gods. As soon as that became clear, that one villager searched for higher ground, hoping he could address everyone, warn them of what the visitors were really doing.

All the chants and music had already drawn the attention of one of the gods. The only time he's known them to do such a thing was when they had something to offer. Curious about what it was this time, he ran to answer their call. But as he came closer, their chants had changed. Into what, he could not tell. He never heard them making any such sound. And as he got closer, he heard several more sounds. It took him a while to comprehend it, but when he arrived, he found out exactly what these others sounds were. They came from the Gateway. It sounded as if someone was trying to break through. So these smaller creatures on the other side want to challenge him? Is that what this was about? He's had enough trouble with all the people of his own size, he didn't need smaller pests to make things worse. As a response, he began bouncing on the gate himself. He rapped eight times, but the creatures on the other side kept on trying to get through. He couldn't understand it. He hated their chants, but they were never this feisty. But if this is their game, he'll play it. With all his might, he knocked his way through the Gateway. After a short while, the Gateway seemed to weaken. Just about enough for two of these little creatures to come through. He looked down at them, confused. These weren't the usual little critters from the other side. What are these? Curious, he lowered his right hand to poke them. But in doing so, he gave them a chance to attack him. He didn't know what they did exactly, but one touch from them stung him, painfully. Instinctively, he stepped on both of them. Unfortunately, this would not have helped him. The other critters had already breached the Gateway, and they all started stampeding through the little entrance they created. He tried swinging at them with his large arms, but for every one of them he killed, several held on to the hairs on his arm. And while he was busy shaking them off, several other started climbing up on him from his legs. Where did these things keep coming from, he wondered. As soon as that question started plaguing his mind, he felt weak, for reasons he didn't fully understand. He looked down his own body, and saw it was overrun by these little creatures. They had no sticks, or anything which the other creatures usually used, and yet they somehow managed to hurt him. He tried fighting against them, but it was hopeless. It didn't take long before the darkness had consumed everything around him, and eventually his own self.

**THE END**


	32. Cleveland

Disclaimer: based on characters created by John Carpenter.

* * *

**Cleveland**

The three of them arrived at the bank. As quick as they could, they left their car and ran to the front door, where they opened the electronic lock, trying to break it open.

"Wait, Carjack." one of them said, "Something's not right."

"What, Snake?!" the one called Carjack, questioned.

"I didn't see any lights on anywhere." Snake replied, "Not the street-lights or in the houses, I haven't seen one functioning camera here,... only the emergency lights are working."

"Hate to say it, but he's right." the one picking the electric lock agreed, "There's no power on this lock either."

"So what? They just have a black-out. Makes our job easier!" Carjack reasoned, "Come on, Texas, let's break..."

"I also didn't see any cars in or out of the city." Snake continued, "Or anyone walking here. The city's deserted."

"If it's deserted, then what is that?" Carjack pointed at something.

Both Snake and the one called Texas looked at what Carjack was pointing at. They saw car-lights, apparently heading toward them.

"Why are they moving so slowly?" Texas wondered.

"Because they're escorted." Snake said.

The other two saw it then too. There were people walking along with the cars, carrying guns. It didn't take long before they realized the cars were really armored vehicles.

"What's the military doing here?" Carjack asked, "The War is over."

"You tell them that." Texas said, "What do you think, Sna..."

Texas turned to ask Snake, but the latter had already disappeared from their sight.

"Where did he go?"

This angered Carjack: "Did he just leave us?"

Snake then reappeared from around a corner. He motioned to them to come to him, and they followed.

Doing so, they entered an alley. There, they saw Snake jumping into a manhole, and they followed. Once they were down in the sewers, they could talk again.

"Explain why we had to come down here?" Carjack asked, "If we just waited for them to walk on by, they would think nothing of us. Now they saw us running, so they know we were gonna rob that bank!"

"Think!" Snake replied, "The city's blacked out, everyone's gone, and the military is patrolling. This ain't a regular curfew. They're looking for someone here."

"Are you reminding us of your fame again?" Texas questioned, "Everyone thinks your dead, Snake."

"Yes, and let's leave it that way." Snake said.

As soon as he said that, they heard voices: "Hey, Sarge! There's an open manhole here!"

"Let's go." Snake whispered, and the three of them ran as fast as they could.

They ran as fast as they could, from one tunnel into another. After long last, they reached a dimly lit tunnel. Upon closer examination, they realized the light came from the ceiling. There, they saw a grid, through which the light of moon shone through.

"Looks like our only way out." Snake said, "Help me up."

Carjack and Texas took each others' hands, giving Snake something to stand on, so the two could lift him up. Doing so, he was raised high enough to reach for the grid. When he was close enough, he slipped his fingers through the grid, grabbed hold of it and slowly pushed it up. But as soon as he did so, he felt the two men letting go of him, leaving him hanging on to the grid, and in the corner of his one good eye, he saw them running away.

"Hey! What're you doin'!" Snake shouted after them, but they didn't respond.

The only response he did get was from the other side. He turned his head to look. He didn't see what was coming at him from the shadows. All he could see was what looked like yellow eyes, lighting up in the dark. So his two henchmen would leave him because they were scared shitless by yellow lights? Snake couldn't believe it. He dropped himself down and raised his gun at the yellow lights.

"Alright, shitheads. Show yourself." he hissed.

Some of them came a little closer into the light. What he saw, he didn't know. One of them looked like a bug, another like a clown, yet another like a mummy, there was one that looked like a mushroom... the only thing they all had in common was that looked like walking darkness. Snake didn't know what they were, but as soon as one of them lunged for him, he knew there was one thing they weren't: friendly. He shot his gun at them. The bug-like ones seemed easy, as it took just one shot to kill them, but the others required several shots. But none of them were as hard to kill as that mushroom-like shadow. He decided not to waste too many bullets on this one (realizing there may be more), so instead he resorted to knocking it out with a pipe he found laying around. But even with that one gone, he soon found himself surrounded by more of these shadows. All, including Snake, were ready for another round, when suddenly a bright light shone through the grid. Since this was brighter than the light the moon was giving, Snake deduced this was unnatural light. He looked up, and saw several men with guns pointing down.

"Don't worry, we'll get you out safely!" one of them said.

Snake was half-relieved he was found.

"Hey, isn't that Snake Plissken?"

Until he heard someone recognize him. He didn't have much time to even begin to wonder how he'd get out of this situation, as the shadows had started their attack on him again. Those men with guns were obviously ready to fire, but now that they recognized him, Snake knew they wouldn't lift a finger to help him. He heard one of them fire a shot, but instead of hitting one of these shadows, it hit Snake's leg, forcing him down.

"What are you doing?" one asked.

"Killing two birds with one stone!" was the reply.

Being down, Snake couldn't do much to fight back. He could merely watch how the grid was lifted off, and some grenades being dropped, just when the shadows jumped him. Snake covered his face in a last ditch effort, just when the explosion occurred.

**THE END**


	33. Atlantis

Disclaimer: based on characters created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper

* * *

**Atlantis**

John Sheppard and his team were sitting in the conference room, discussing the situation with the head of the Atlantis Base, Woolsey.

"I really fail to see the problem." Woolsey said, "If all the Wraith are gathering on this planet, then wouldn't it make sense if we attack them now?"

"That's exactly what they'd want us to do." the biggest guy replied.

Woolsey sighed: "I expected better of you, Ronon. I thought you'd jump at an opportunity like this."

"I think what he means is that the Wraith hope we think as you do, and attack them at once." Sheppard reasoned, "But in reality, even if we have all our ships, we'd be outnumbered against them."

"I'm sorry." the one called McKay spoke up, "Am I the only who's more disturbed about why all those Wraith would gather, considering that not all of them like each other very much?"

"I have to agree with Rodney." the one called Teyla said.

"You do?" McKay questioned.

"Not since the war with the Ancients have so many Wraith gathered." Teyla explained.

"What are you saying?" Woolsey got more worried as he heard her talk.

"I'm saying that so many Wraith would only come together if there's a reason."

"Like what?"

"We have an off-world activation!" somebody exclaimed from the control room.

"Let's hope that doesn't answer your question." Sheppard said.

All five arrived at the control panels. But on their way there, they noticed something odd about the Stargate's force-field.

"Is it me, or the shield getting... darker?" McKay wasn't sure how to describe it.

"I hope not." Sheppard replied, "I hate to think you and I have the same mental problems."

"Glad to know you have my back." McKay replied, sarcastically.

"John, doesn't this remind you of something?" Teyla asked, "Like that entity from our first year here?"

Barely had the thought registered in McKay's mind, and he already groaned at the thought, while Sheppard looked worried, as Ronon and Woolsey were confused.

"What entity?" Ronon asked.

"The Ancients once kept a creature here, hoping they could figure out ascension." Sheppard explained.

"You mean that thing that feeds on energy?" Woolsey suddenly knew what they were talking about.

"Sounds dangerous." Ronon remarked.

"I thought you killed it." Woolsey needed to know this for sure.

"Not exactly." McKay stammered, "We just sent it to another planet."

"Are you trying to tell me that the most dangerous entity you've ever encountered is still alive?" Woolsey couldn't believe he was hearing this, "And at our gate now?"

"I'm not sure it is." the technician at the control panel said.

"What do you mean, Chuck?" Woolsey wondered.

"If it was that entity, we'd notice a sizable loss of energy from the Gate." Chuck explained, "But so far, nothing unusual."

Just then the Gate shut down, as did the Shield. The room was quiet again, and no entity or anything else that didn't belong in sight.

Ronon shrugged: "Looks like there's nothing to worry about."

"This won't be another one of those times when we think there's nothing, while there really is something. Is it?" McKay asked.

"As if we haven't enough to worry about with the Wraith." Sheppard said.

"Rodney." Woolsey said, "You better stay and see if you can find out what that was about. And Gate-travel is suspended until further notice."

Elsewhere on the base, a young private got out of his bed, get dressed, and was ready to leave for his daily duty. He walked to the door, waved his hand before the sensors... but the door wouldn't open. He used his radio.

"McKay, this is Private..."

"I'm sure what you have to say is terribly important, but I'm a little busy here." McKay interrupted him, "Call Dr. Szelenka."

The Private didn't like being spoken to like that, even if was by one of the most important men on this mission. Still, he did as he was told and contacted this other person.

"Szelenka, do you hear me?"

"Are having problems opening your door?" Szelenka asked.

"Yes." the Private was dumbstruck, "How did you know?"

"You're the fifth in under three minutes." Szelenka explained.

"Are you saying there's a malfunc..." he didn't finish his sentence, as he was interrupted when something materialized before him. From his own shadow, a large black bug-like thing appeared. The Private cried of fright, but soon recovered and started shooting it.

"What's going on there?" Szelenka asked him.

Not long after this, McKay was contacted again: "Rodney? I know you're busy and all..."

It was a woman's voice, and one that McKay recognized immediately: "For you, I'm never too busy. You know that."

"This is a bad time to be sweet." was the reply.

This worried McKay: "What's wrong, Jennifer?"

"You better come to the emergency room. Stat!"

Even if it was someone else calling him, it sounded serious enough for him to drop what he was doing and rush to the emergency room.

"McKay?" Woolsey saw him making his leave.

But McKay didn't stop to respond. Seeing this happen, Sheppard realized that McKay wouldn't rush like this unless it was really important. He gestured to Ronon and Teyla to come along and follow him.

All of them arrived at the emergency room, where they witnessed for themselves how several people were in bad shape.

"What happened to these people?" Sheppard asked.

"They were all attacked." the doctor answered, "Something jumped these people and tried to tear them apart."

"What could do that, Jennifer?" McKay asked.

"They don't know." she answered, "Many of them didn't see their attackers."

"And what of those who did?" Teyla wondered.

Jennifer raised her shoulders: "Some say they're bugs, others say they were shadows."

A worried look dawned on McKay's face.

"Rodney?" Sheppard recognized that look.

Before McKay could say anything, one of the patients started to yell in agony. Jennifer rushed to the patient's aid, but he already began to fade away. Nobody in the room had any time to let this event sink in, as immediately after his disappearance, one of these shadow-bugs appeared in its stead. Everyone was stunned at the sight of it, until it jumped from its bed and started clawing toward the nearest person. In reflex, Ronon raised his gun and shot the shadow-bug.

"What was that?" Sheppard asked, still aghast at what just happened.

"It's exactly what I hoped it wasn't." McKay answered, "Those are the same creatures that attacked the SGC years ago."

"Then what are they Rodney?" Sheppard questioned.

"They're Repli-shadows." was the answer, "They're basically shadows that act like Replicators. The create more of themselves by killing others."

"Wait, if these are shadows..." Teyla thought out loud, "... could they have something to do with what happened to the Gate?"

A light began to lit up in McKay's head: "Of course! As shadows, they wouldn't be physical beings that needed to re-integrate on our side, so they could just hold still until we shut off our shield. But that shouldn't even be possible!"

"Well it is." Sheppard said, "How do we stop them?"

Meanwhile, the Stargate was activating again. As is the routine, Chuck pressed the button to activate the Shield.

"We have an off-wor..." he didn't finish his sentence, as he soon noticed the Shield wasn't activating.

"Why aren't you activating the Shield?" Woolsey asked him.

"I did." Chuck replied, as he pressed the button again, multiple times, but without effect, "The Shield's not working."

No sooner had he said that, or something came through the Stargate. Both Woolsey and Chuck were paralyzed at the sight of what came through, and what followed. Several men in combat gear, a small number of them wearing long black coats, but all of them were green-skinned and white-haired. The Wraith had arrived. Chuck was about to get up to call for help, but from the very button that was supposed to activate the Shield, a small black thing jumped up and grabbed Chuck's face.

"Everybody!" Woolsey called over his radio, "We have an emergency at the Gate-roo..."

He couldn't finish his sentence, as one of the Wraith shot its stun-gun at him, instantly knocking him out.

"Did he just say there are Wraith at the Gate-room?" McKay wondered.

Before anyone could answer, something appeared in the doorway. Everyone who had a gun immediately raised it. But none knew what they were raising their guns at. They still looked like Repli-shadows, except they were human-sized. Of these human-sized shadows, some had mechanical limbs, while others had longer hair and wore long coats, resembling Wraith with black skins instead of green. All fired their guns, but these newer shadows didn't seem fazed by the shots.

"Anyone still there?" a voice sounded through the radio.

Everyone was appalled by the sound of the voice, as it sounded human, not Wraith.

"Who is this?" Sheppard asked.

"In every sense of the word, nobody." was the reply, "But you can call me Nemo."

The name would have amused them if the situation wasn't so serious: "All right, Nemo. What do you want?"

"For all this to run as smoothly as possible." Nemo answered.

"And what would all this be?" Sheppard asked.

"Taking over Atlantis."

"And betraying your own people?" Ronon sounded furious at the thought.

"Please. I'm a Nobody. I have no people to be loyal to."

"Is this what finally takes us down?" McKay couldn't believe it, "A complete nut-case?"

As soon as he said that, the shadows started toward them. Everyone fought with all their might, but to no avail. Soon enough, they were all captured by the shadows (though it took five mechanical ones to take Ronon).

"You have served us well." one of the Wraith said to Nemo.

"I beg to differ." Nemo replied.

"Oh? Why is that?" the Wraith hissed.

As an answer, Nemo placed his two hands together, upon which he moved them away from each other, slowly. And as they moved further apart, a dark-blue orb appeared between his hands. Inside the orb, the Wraith could see what was happening to the planet where all the Wraith had gathered. Several large gray ships were surrounding their hive-ships, while the mecha-shadows were fighting and turning the Wraith.

"What have you done!?" the Wraith asked, but didn't wait for an answer.

Immediately, he placed his hand on Nemo's chest, thinking he could suck the life out of him. To The Wraith's astonishment, he didn't sense any life, and Nemo smiled.

"I was hoping you'd do that." he said.

With his right hand, which held a blank card, he grabbed the Wraith's arm. The Wraith growled in protest, but that didn't stop him from becoming a ray of light, that got sucked into the card Nemo was holding. All the Wraith drones's first instinct told them to shoot, but they got too confused about what was happening before them, they hesitated to do anything. Nemo broadened his smile. He inserted the card into a slot on his belt. He closed the slot, and instantly shifted into this Wraith he just captured.

"Dial the Gate." Wraith-Nemo commanded, and though the Wraith drones were still confused, they knew when to take an order, so they did as they were told.

"And you..." Wraith-Nemo pointed to one of the drones, "Get the prisoners here."

Once the drone left, Nemo could look around. This turned out to be a great day. His army just got larger and more dangerous, and he just acquired a fine piece of technology. Nothing could stand between him and complete domination any more.

**THE END**


	34. Yokota Air Base

Disclaimer: based on the characters owned by Production I.G.

* * *

**Yokota Air Base**

Knowing that the agents will do the rest of the work, she decided to move away from them. She had only just killed their last target. Hopefully it would be last one she had to kill, but she never knew with these monsters. And even if it was the last one... if someone like her OR the ones she kills exist, who knows what else exists. Silently, she hoped she would never find out.

She wanted to leave the Air Base, but she knew she couldn't get out the same way she got in, so she looked for an alternate way out. She walked passed a hangar base, behind which she saw a barb-wired fence. For someone like her, that can't stop her. So she started toward that fence.

"A vampire, eh?"

A voice spoke to her. Immediately, she drew her blade as she turned around. This wasn't possible. How could she not have noticed him? How could he not have a smell, or a heartbeat? More importantly, how could she have overlooked him as she was walking by?

"It's curious." the voice, which belonged to a man in long dark trench coat, continued, "I've come across many things on my many voyages. Serial killers, shinigami, alternate versions of humans, werewolves, humanoid insects,... but vampires?"

Immediately, she jumped at him. She held his throat, and held aloft her sword. During that time, he didn't move a muscle.

"That sword won't help you." he said, dryly, "And even if it did... well, let's just say..."

In the corner of her eye, she saw something materialize. She turned to look. What materialized were a group of humanoids. But unlike the dark man she had in her grip, they didn't resemble humans in the same way as he did.

"With me dead, who'd be left to control them?"

"Why should I care?" she asked.

"I assume your life still depends on the blood of others." he reasoned, "So these humans, even if you don't like them, you still need them alive. If I'm dead, "they" will be out of control, and you will lose your food-supply.

She grinned: "I can handle those five."

"I know you can." he replied, "But can you handle an army of them?"

This spooked her: "You're bluffing."

"Please excuse my choice of words..." he continued, "... but are you willing to stake your life on that?"

Apparently she was, as she slammed down her blade. Unfortunately for her, the dark man was too fast. He grabbed her arm, twisted it, so to get himself loose, so her blade hit the wall where his shoulder was just seconds before.

The dark man stepped aside: "I expected a simple yes or no, but some people can't seem to just say that for some reason."

She looked at her arm. It's a minor injury, she should heal from that soon enough. But until then, she was vulnerable before this man and his five... whatever they were.

"Maybe we can help each other out." he said.

She frowned: "How?"

"By joining my ranks." he said.

She smirked: "Why would I want that?"

"Like I said, if I die, they'll be out of control. But if there was someone else like me, then they'd still be under control."

"And how does that help me?"

He shrugged: "Since you're a vampire, I assume you're still suffering from a few problems. Just one stab in your heart and you're dust? Or if not that, you've been alive for so long, you're hoping it would end soon, so your sorrows can finally end? And even if you haven't reached that stage in your life yet, you do fear you one day will. Correct?"

"You know nothing about me!" she cried at him.

"Is that a yes or a no?" he questioned.

She raised her sword and lunged at him. The only reaction that got out of him was an eye-roll, followed by the five weird men from before surrounding her. Her sword stabbed the one with mechanical parts. While sparks started flying out of it, there was still enough strength left inside to grab her twisted arm, causing her enough pain to paralyze her. Before anyone could do anything else, something happened, startling even the dark man himself. He turned to look, only to see a large purple electrical whirlpool. Before he could say anything at all, a man came out of the whirlpool. This man was in a metal exo-skeleton, which made buzzing sounds with every move he made. It even buzzed as he raised his arm to point a gun at the dark man.

"Freeze. You are under arrest." the robot-man said, with a synthesized voice.

The dark man sighed: "I was hoping it wouldn't come to that."

With a snap of his fingers, dark circles appeared in the sky. From those circles, large ships materialized. Some were small and gray, while others were large, dark, safe for the flickering lights.

"You'll doom this world if you kill me now." the dark man said.

While they were all distracted, the vampire had found the strength to fight against her own agony. She swung her sword, which cut the mecha-thing in two, so it let go of her, giving her the opportunity to decapitate one of the remaining four, which got the other three to stand back.

This impressed the robot-man just as much as the dark man.

"Impressive." the latter said, "You'll make one great challenge."

Having said that, another dark circle appeared behind him, and he disappeared in that. The vampire tried to follow him, but the circle was gone before she reached him. The remaining three had regained their composure again and tried to fight her, but the robot-man fired his gun at all three. They didn't go down easily, but it kept them at big enough distance, leaving an opening for the vampire to cut them into pieces. Unfortunately for them, the ships that had appeared in the sky had already begun their attack on the Air Base. The vampire thought of running, but the robot-man stopped her.

"Where will you go?"

"Away from here." she answered.

"There won't be any place for you to go." he said, "They will consume this world, and everyone on it. Including you."

"Then where can I go?"

As an answer, the robot-man's right leg... opened itself, so he could put his gun away, while at the same time his left leg opened, from where he took out what looked like a TV-remote. He pressed a few buttons on that remote, which somehow shot a purple ray, which formed that same whirlpool from before.

"What is that?" she asked.

"A gate to safety." the robot-man answered.

She wasn't entirely sure she should trust him. He may have come from the other side of that "gate" so she knew she wouldn't be walking into a death-trap, but that didn't mean she should trust him without question. Then again, the recent events (like the killing of three monsters, plus her fight with the dark man and his minions), plus her twisted arm, it made her realize she wasn't in the best of shape to try and fight back against this army of invaders, so her options were limited.

"Who are you anyway?" she asked.

"My friends call me Murphy." the robot-man answered, "But you can call me Robocop, miss..."

"Saya." she said, "And don't call me "miss"."

With this, she stepped through the portal, followed by the robot-man.

**THE END**


End file.
